Eight
by Daicy
Summary: A complete rewrite of the eighth season of Charmed. The aftermath of the season seven finale is resolved differently; no original season eight episodes have been used - it's all different; and the season story arc has nothing to do with an ultimate power.
1. Mostly Charmless (Part One)

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Charmed, or any of its characters.

**A/N:** The whole premise of this fan fiction is to completely rewrite season eight. Everything that happened from the very beginning of season one through to the very end of season seven has happened. If Billie does make an appearance in this season rewrite, she will only be an one episode one-off innocent. Also, Leo will not be frozen and taken away; Coop and Henry will still be introduced in season eight, but the way that Phoebe and Paige meet them will be different; and the whole story arc for this season has nothing to do with an ultimate power. Each chapter is a full 'episode' - sorry about the length, but it's easier to do this way. With the aftermath of the season seven finale, I thought that the season eight premiere would have been better off as a two parter, so here it is...

* * *

**Mostly Charmless (Part One)**

**_June 28_****_th_****_ 2005_**

A teenage boy and his father were running through a tunnel in the Underworld. It was dim and silent – a little too silent. They came to a stop at a dead end. The father turned around to check that no demons had spotted them. They were still alone.

Slowly the father turned back to his son and nodded. The teenage boy took a deep breath and stared at the earthen wall. Suddenly a wooden door appeared out of nowhere in the wall. Taking a deep breath, the father opened it and entered. The teenage boy followed. As they shut the door behind them, the teenage boy squinted at the door, causing it to disappear and be replaced with wall again.

They had entered an enclosed cavern. It was lit by torches and filled with demons. None of the demons had spotted the two newcomers as the demons were busy. Many of the demons were using their powers to throw energy and fireballs at the ceiling of the cavern. Some were shovelling any dirt, debris, and dust that fell from the ceiling into wheelbarrows. Others were shimmering out of the cavern with filled wheelbarrows, while other demons were shimmering into the cavern with empty wheelbarrows. One demon was standing at the top of some hand crafted stone steps that led up to the ceiling. The demon was blasting the ceiling with energy balls from a close range. It was obvious that the demons were up to something – whatever they were after was above them.

Suddenly a demon flamed into the cavern. He was upper level, and most likely the leader. This caught the attention of every demon, the father, and the teenage boy. Every demon stopped what they were doing and turned to face the lead demon. The demons left their positions and culminated into a crowd. The father and the teenage boy tried to fit in amongst the crowd of demons. They did not want to stand out.

The flare of the torches reflected in the lead demon's menacing green eyes as he observed the state of the ceiling.

'Who was in charge while I was gone?' asked the lead demon. His voice was quiet but threatening at the same time.

Slowly a tough looking demon with a confident expression stepped forward. With a quick bow, he said, 'I was, Xalinth.'

The lead demon, Xalinth, clicked his fingers and the confident, tough looking demon burst into flames before disintegrating into ash. This act resulted in a low murmuring among the crowd.

'Silence!' snapped Xalinth. Once the crowd had quietened down, Xalinth continued. 'I left for a little while, because I had to deal with the disarray that has evolved in the Underworld since Zankou's demise. I left to seek some order amongst the upper level demons. I left expecting you all to have completed this work by the time I came back. You are not finished. Would anyone care to step forward and explain?'

There was absolute silence amongst the crowd as demons exchanged nervous glances. No one wanted to step forward. No one wanted to meet the same fate as the demon that Xalinth had vanquished with a snap of his fingers.

The father and the teenage boy exchanged looks. With a slight nod from his father, the teenage boy knew this was the signal that told him it was time for them to start their attack. Simultaneously, both father and son removed athames from their pockets.

Xalinth began to pace in front of his crowd of demons. He was becoming impatient in his wait for an answer.

'If no one steps forward, I will be forced to vanquish you all–' Xalinth paused as one of the demons in the crowd went up in flames. The lead demon knew that he had not vanquished that demon, so who had?

Almost like a chain reaction, demons, one by one, from different sides of the crowd began to go up in flames as they were vanquished. Terrified demons began to shimmer out, too anxious about what was going on to stay and find out.

Soon so few demons were left that it became obvious to the remaining demons and Xalinth who the source of the vanquishes were. The father and teenage boy suddenly found themselves having to dodge energy and fireballs as they continued to attack.

As the teenage boy ducked out of the way of the umpteenth fireball and impaled a demon with his athame, he heard an anguished shout. The teenage boy turned around to see his father laying stationary on the ground. He was bleeding. The only other demon left in the cavern was Xalinth, who – with an energy ball forming in his hand – was approaching the father.

The teenage boy hurled his athame in the direction of Xalinth. The energy ball extinguished from Xalinth's hand allowing him to catch the athame by the tip. Xalinth turned to face the teenage boy, smirking.

'You thought you and your father could defeat me?' sneered Xalinth. 'The Charmed Ones were the only ones that would have been powerful enough to do that – and they are dead.'

The teenage boy did not reply. His gaze was continually shifting between Xalinth, his father, and a nearby wheelbarrow.

'There is no way out,' said Xalinth, slowly advancing on the teenage boy. 'Your father will be dead soon and you will follow him…'

The teenage boy grabbed a wheelbarrow and pushed it towards Xalinth. This hardly fazed Xalinth. He threw the wheelbarrow against a wall, causing dirt to rain down from the ceiling.

'You cannot stop me…' said Xalinth, continuing to walk towards the teenage boy. 'No one can.'

The teenage boy was continually stepping backwards until he hit a wall. The teenage boy gulped. Xalinth pressed the athame up against the teenage boy's chest.

'Shall I kill you in the same manner that you decided to kill my minions?' asked Xalinth rhetorically.

The teenage boy tried not to look Xalinth in the eyes. Instead the teenage boy looked at the ground. Suddenly the teenage boy had an idea. Focusing on the ground beneath Xalinth's feet, a wooden door suddenly appeared. Xalinth's weight caused the door to fall open, and gravity did its part in allowing Xalinth to fall through. As soon as Xanith had fallen through, the teenage boy made sure that the door disappeared from the ground.

The teenage boy ran over to his father and checked his pulse. The teenage boy breathed a sigh of relief. His father still had a pulse – it was extremely weak, but it was existent. The teenage boy picked up his father, managing to take the weight on his back. Slowly the teenage boy ascended the shoddily built stone steps.

When he reached the ceiling, he squinted at the ceiling, causing a wooden hatch to appear. Pushing the hatch open, the teenage boy pushed his unconscious father onto the unseen floor above. Now alone in the cavern, the teenage boy had one last look around before climbing up through the hatch into whatever lay above.

The teenage boy looked at his surroundings as he closed the hatch – not bothering to make it disappear. The place where he found himself standing looked like it had been caught in the midst of an explosion. Beams littered the ground and soot covered everything. At the end of the room were some wooden steps that were charred but looked stable enough to climb. Hoisting his father back onto his back, the teenage boy ascended the wooden steps.

The teenage boy entered what appeared to be a kitchen. It did not look like the kitchen had been used for a while. He was in someone's house. Still carrying his unconscious father, the teenage boy left the kitchen through some doors. He quickly located the front door. The house was really quite extravagant on the inside.

The teenage boy opened the front door, exited, and shut the front door. He descended the steps and placed his unconscious father on the ground as he reached the pavement. The teenage boy checked his father's pulse. The teenage boy went pale as he could feel no pulse. His father had not survived.

Trying to hold back his tears, the teenage boy took one last look back at the house that the demons were trying to break through to from their cavern: the pink Victorian manor.

**...**

**_June 29_****_th_****_ 2005_**

Holding the _Bay Mirror_ newspaper open to the Obituaries page, a brunette haired woman read aloud:

'_A memorial service will be held for three brave sisters: Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, and Paige Matthews. The service is being held at _–'

'Piper! Please shut up! I have a headache!'

The brunette – who was Piper still under her magical disguise – put the newspaper down, annoyed at the interruption. She was sitting on the edge of a double bed in a dingy hotel room. She glared at a red haired woman who was laying on a sofa with a damp cloth on her forehead.

'I thought you might be interested in hearing our obituaries, Paige,' said Piper.

The red haired woman – who was Paige still under her magical disguise – slowly sat up, holding the damp cloth to her forehead, as she looked over at Piper.

'You know what, Piper? I really don't give a damn about that! Do you want to know why? It is because we are not dead!' moaned Paige, irritably.

Piper sighed. 'Paige, I thought you would be curious over how many people miss you…'

Paige shook her head and snapped sarcastically, 'How can you even suggest that, Piper? We have been presumed dead for over a month now. The money that we have is running low _and_ we have no idea what we will do when that runs out!'

Piper let out another sigh. 'Paige, it would have looked suspicious if I had emptied our bank accounts just before our deaths… I had to be inconspicuous…'

'And where has that led us, Piper? The four of us are currently sharing one dingy hotel room, eating take outs every day! Do we even have a plan of what we are going to do when the money runs out? I mean, what were we thinking when we decided to fake our deaths?' moaned Paige.

Piper furrowed her brow, becoming extremely sombre. 'We were thinking: We need to defeat Zankou before he kills us and takes control of the Nexus.'

'Well… yeah…' said Paige, hesitating as she tried to come up with a counter to Piper's words. 'Couldn't we have come up with a different plan to this?'

Piper narrowed her eyes. 'I didn't hear you suggesting anything over a month ago when we were trying to come up with ways to defeat Zankou!'

Paige shrugged. 'Well… Faking our deaths seemed like a good idea at the time…'

The debate fizzled out as Piper returned to reading the newspaper and Paige lay back down on the sofa.

A few minutes later a key was heard turning in the door lock. The door opened to reveal a blonde haired woman, holding a paper bag in one hand and a newspaper in the other. A brunette haired man, holding a couple of pizza boxes, entered the room too.

'Phoebe!' said Paige, sitting up. 'Do you have my paracetamols?'

The blonde haired woman – who was Phoebe still under her magical disguise – nodded and passed Paige the paper bag. Piper looked at the brunette haired man and frowned.

'Are we really going to have take away pizza for dinner again, Leo?' Piper asked unhappily.

The brunette haired man – who was Leo still under his magical disguise – placed the two pizza boxes on the table before sitting on the bed next to Piper.

'Money is getting tight,' said Leo as way of explanation.

Everyone took a slice of pizza and began to eat in silence. Phoebe lay on her front on the floor with the newspaper she had bought open in front of her. She was flicking through the newspaper while eating her slice of pizza. Suddenly Phoebe gasped, dropping the slice of pizza onto the floor. All eyes turned to Phoebe.

'Did you just have a premonition?' Piper asked Phoebe.

'You have not had a premonition since we faked our deaths… Does that mean the Elders have found us?' said Paige.

'Not all of Phoebe's premonitions are sent by the Elders… The Elders only send premonitions concerning innocents…' said Leo.

Phoebe still said nothing. Piper, Paige, and Leo exchanged worried looks.

'Phoebe?' said Piper, concerned.

Phoebe held her hand up, gesturing for Piper to be quiet. That was when Piper, Paige, and Leo realised that Phoebe had not had a premonition at all. Something in the newspaper had caught her attention and she was concentrating on reading it.

'Phoebe!' snapped Piper.

Paige jumped off the sofa and peered over Phoebe's shoulder at the page Phoebe was reading.

Paige gasped. 'Piper, turn your newspaper to page twenty four!'

'What is it?' asked Piper. 'My newspaper won't be any use. Mine is yesterday's copy. I think Phoebe has today's copy.'

Piper knelt down onto the floor so as she could see the page. She gasped as soon as she saw the photograph for the article. Piper pulled Leo onto the floor so as he could see the newspaper too.

The article's photograph consisted of Victor Bennett being escorted out of a police car in handcuffs. The headline read '_Basement Blast Blamed on Bennett_.' Below that the subheading read '_Bennett has become the prime suspect in the deaths of his two daughters and their half sister_.'

'Oh… This sounds bad,' said Piper, shocked, before she had even gotten into the main article.

Phoebe turned to look at Piper, Paige, and Leo.

'I just finished reading the article. It is worse than bad,' said Phoebe unenthusiastically.

'Shush, we are reading,' was the joint reply from Piper, Paige, and Leo, who now had their eyes glued to the article.

'_Victor Bennett, 56, the father of two of the basement blast victims, has become the main suspect in the ongoing investigation fronted by Detective Gordon Riley, 38, and Inspector David Sanders, 32._

_Over a month ago, May 22__nd__, there was an explosion within 1329 Prescott Street. Police were already on site for reasons that they still refuse to divulge. The source of the explosion was found to have originated from the basement. No bodies were found and although the investigating officer at that time – Agent Keyes, who was dropped from the case two weeks later – stated that he had seen the three victims – Piper Halliwell, 31, Phoebe Halliwell (popularly known by this paper and its reader as _Ask Phoebe_), 29, and Paige Matthews, 27 – within the manor moments before the blast, they were reported missing. As the bodies have not yet been found – dead or alive – it is assumed that they are still filed as missing or presumed dead. Leo Wyatt, 31, the husband of Piper Halliwell, was last seen on the day of the explosion. The police have searched for him, but he seems to have gone missing._

_At first, it was seen as a lucky coincidence that Bennett happened to be babysitting Piper Halliwell's two children at the time – Wyatt Matthew Halliwell, 2, and Christopher Perry Halliwell, 1. However, after further investigation, police have begun to suspect that this was all pre-planned._

_Bennett was found in possession of the deeds to 1329 Prescott Street (the site of the blast) and _P3 (_Piper Halliwell's club). Information from the bank confirms that the said Halliwell made this decision only hours before she went missing. Other clues such as the $1000 that left the joint bank account of the three victims hours before the blast also suggest that something was planned._

_Bennett was arrested yesterday morning and taken to the police station for questioning while his two grandsons were taken to _South Bay Social Services_. However with little evidence supporting their theories that Bennett has information regarding this, Detective Riley and Inspector Sanders were forced to release Bennett from custody in the early hours of this morning. His two grandsons have been returned to his care._

_Tomorrow, Bennett will be holding a memorial service for his two daughters and their half sister. Although his name has been cleared, it has been confirmed that Detective Riley will be attending the memorial service on official matters._'

Piper, Paige, and Leo finished reading the article. They turned to face Phoebe.

'This is really bad,' Piper stated sombrely.

'They don't have any evidence against Dad,' said Phoebe, trying to think of the bright side. 'He is not lying to them in the interrogation room, because he thinks we are dead. He –'

'What?' said a shocked Paige, standing up. 'How could you not have told him yet? He is your dad!'

Piper, Phoebe, and Leo got to their feet. Phoebe had a guilty expression on her face, but Piper just shook her head angrily.

'What do you expect us to do?' asked Piper. 'Knock on the door and say to him, 'Hi. I know we don't look like ourselves at the moment, but it's us. We are back. We never died.' That seems a little insensitive.'

'Well, of course it would, considering you have left it over a month!' said Paige, turning away from her sisters to avoid eye contact with them.

'Paige! The police are watching him! They have suspicions about us! Possible magical exposure suspicions! If three women turn up on his doorstep, they might use that as proof to expose us!' said Piper stubbornly.

'That is the worst excuse possible, Piper. There are many ways that you could have gone to see your dad without the police knowing,' said Paige. 'I thought you were all about family…'

Phoebe let out a short laugh. Paige turned around to face her. Phoebe no longer had a guilty expression. She was shaking her head.

'Paige, how can you talk to Piper like that? How can you be one to talk about that? When was the last time you decided to call Sam, huh?' Phoebe paused, watching Paige's expression change to one of guilt. 'Exactly my point.'

'Paige, I agree with your sisters,' Leo put in.

'Figures,' mumbled Paige.

'No. Not because of the fact that Piper is my wife,' said Leo. 'I agree with them because we are trying to stay below the radar. If we start visiting family – even under our disguises – people will begin to notice and wonder. I am not just talking about the police. I am also referring to the good magical community, as well as evil.'

Paige sighed, giving up with the argument, as she dropped back onto the sofa. She would have continued to argue for longer, but her head was killing her. Phoebe noticed Paige's discomfort.

'Are the paracetamols not working?' asked Phoebe. All anger was gone from her voice, replaced with concern.

Paige shook her head. 'I still have a headache and the damn whitelighter ringing keeps going on and on and on and on and on and o–'

'We get the point, Paige,' said Piper, smiling gently to show that she was trying not to start another argument.

'Sorry,' said Paige. 'I guess I have been a little on edge recently, because it won't stop.'

'It will only stop after you have answered the calls of your charges,' said Leo.

'The Elders don't even know we are alive,' Piper pointed out. 'How can they still be sending Paige charges, Leo?'

'Shouldn't her charges have been reassigned?' asked Phoebe.

Leo nodded. 'I would have thought so.'

'I thought they had been reassigned. The ringing only started up again a few days ago,' said Paige. 'I think I have somehow been assigned a new charge.'

'How though? Why would the Elders..?' Piper trailed off as she turned to Leo for an explanation.

'The Elders don't assign every charge. Sometimes a charge connects to a whitelighter by themselves. It's called the _latent charge effect_. The ringing won't go away until you answer the call,' explained Leo.

'Well, if it is just one charge… maybe I should…' mumbled Paige.

'Don't answer them, Paige,' said Phoebe. 'We want to live a magic-free life, remember?'

'We haven't been attacked by a demon since our faked deaths. We have not even been found by the Elders yet,' continued Piper. 'As long as we avoid using our magic – both witch and whitelighter abilities – we will stay under the radar.'

Paige sighed. 'That's easy for you to say…' Paige stood up. 'I need some fresh air.' With those words, Paige exited the hotel room.

Phoebe knelt back onto the floor to pick up the slice of pizza she had dropped.

'Do you think this is still okay to eat?' Phoebe asked Piper and Leo.

Piper and Leo did not reply. Their eyes wandered over to a cockroach that was crawling across the carpet in the far corner of the room. Phoebe followed their gaze and took the cockroach as the answer. Phoebe dropped the pizza slice into the bin.

**...**

Paige was walking along a street, not paying any attention to where she was going. The sun had set on San Francisco. It was quite late into the evening. Paige looked up and immediately recognised where she had unintentionally walked to: _P3_.

Paige had not been completely honest with her sisters. They thought that her main reason for moaning about their new lives was because she was finding it hard to ignore her whitelighter duties. However, Paige also felt homesick. She had lived at the manor nowhere near as long as Piper and Phoebe, but Paige missed being there. Paige also missed hanging out at _P3_ in the evenings.

Paige found herself walking into _P3_. There was no bouncer at the door and the club was not very full. No live band was playing. Instead songs were being blasted through the speakers of a stereo. By the looks of it, the club was not doing very well without Piper.

Paige approached the bar and sat on a bar stool. She held her head in her hands as it began to pound again.

'Maybe going to a noisy club with a headache was not such a good idea,' Paige muttered to herself.

'Can I see an I.D.?'

Paige looked up. The bartender was staring directly at Paige, waiting for her response.

'My – My I.D.?' said Paige, puzzled. She did not realise her disguise made her look younger than twenty one.

'Yes, can I see it?' asked the bartender.

'Don't worry. I don't drink alcohol, so I won't be ordering any,' Paige reassured him. That was the truth, but she also suddenly realised that due to their fake identities, she and her sisters had no I.D.

'That doesn't matter,' said the bartender. 'The new owner said that he does not want to get into trouble. So anyone below twenty one is not allowed in the club.'

'Do I look under twenty one to you?' said Paige, annoyed.

'Show me your I.D. then,' said the bartender.

'I don't have it on me…' said Paige quietly.

'Then I will have to ask you to leave,' said the bartender.

Paige frowned angrily. 'No. No! I am not leaving! I deserve to sit in here as much as anyone else does!'

The bartender shook his head. He looked behind Paige and shouted across the room: 'Ray! I need you to escort someone out of here!'

Paige turned around in her seat to see a big, bulky man – presumably Ray, the club's bouncer – approaching the bar.

'Hey Ray. Could you show this young lady the way out?' the bartender asked Ray.

Ray nodded and then turned to Paige. 'Follow me.'

Paige shook her head. 'No!'

'We reserve the rights to refuse entry to anyone. We could get the cops involved if you would prefer,' said Ray.

Paige sighed. If the police got involved then she would definitely have a problem with her lack of I.D. and lack of real identity. Paige stood up and followed Ray to the back door.

'Do I not get to leave via the entrance?' asked Paige grumpily.

'Look, just leave and come back with I.D.,' said Ray, closing the door on Paige.

Paige turned away from the door. Her headache suddenly reached a peak, causing her to lose her balance. Paige fell to the floor in agony. She opened her eyes to notice that she had fallen onto someone's feet. Someone was standing, looking down at her.

'Please don't vomit on my shoes, Paige.'

Slowly, Paige got to her feet to face the person who had uttered those words. Recognising him immediately, Paige stepped back a little.

'What are you doing here, Sam?' asked Paige.

**...**

**_June 30_****_th_****_ 2005_**

Piper was sitting up on the double bed. Phoebe was sitting on top of a makeshift bed that they had put on the floor. The sound of water running – a shower – in the adjoining bathroom was audible. The alarm clock in the room read '_01:08_'.

'What are we doing here, Piper?' Phoebe sighed dejectedly.

Ignoring Phoebe's melodramatic question, Piper asked, 'How long do you think it will be before Paige comes back?'

'Relax, Piper. She needs a chance to think about things,' said Phoebe. 'She is a grown up. She can do whatever she wants.'

'I know, but… I am worried… With the way things have been recently…' said Piper.

Phoebe sighed. 'Yeah. You would have thought that a life without the Elders and demons would be great.'

'I just cannot see that as a huge positive at the moment, because… Paige was right. It is all about family and I have not spoken to or seen Wyatt or Chris for over a month. Plus Dad does not know that we are alive,' said Piper.

'Piper, are you suggesting we attend the memorial service tomorrow?' asked Phoebe.

Piper frowned. 'Do you think it's wrong to crash our own funeral?'

Phoebe shrugged. 'You will get to see Wyatt and Chris… and Dad. We can tell him the truth while we are there. You know, let him know we are fine.'

A tap was heard being turned and the sound of running water in the bathroom stopped.

'What about the things Leo said though? As soon as we do that, the Elders and demons are sure to figure out we are still around, whether we wander around in disguise or not,' said Piper.

'As long as the police do not find out, I don't care,' said Phoebe. 'I want to see my nephews and speak to Dad.'

Piper nodded. 'Wyatt, Chris, and Dad.'

The bathroom door opened and Leo walked out wearing pyjama bottoms. He noticed Piper and Phoebe's cheerful expressions straight away.

'What did the two of you decide while I was out of the room?' asked Leo.

'For an ex-whitelighter, you sure still have that instinctive thing down,' laughed Phoebe weakly.

Leo sat down on the bed next to Piper waiting for a proper response to his question.

'Leo,' said Piper, taking his hand. 'We need to go clothes shopping in the morning.'

Leo looked puzzled. 'Why?'

'Well, I don't fancy turning up to my own funeral in a t-shirt and ripped jeans,' said Phoebe, cluing onto what Piper meant.

Leo's jaw dropped.

**...**

Sam and Paige were sitting at a table in an apartment building. Sam had orbed them there so as they could have a private chat indoors.

'How did you know it was me?' asked Paige, breaking the silence that had been maintained since they had arrived at the apartment.

'That is how you want to start our reunion, Paige?' asked Sam.

'Yes, Sam,' said Paige.

Sam sighed. 'Will I ever earn the chance to be called dad?'

'I already had a dad. Remember our chat when you last saw me, _three_ years ago?' said Paige.

'Paige, I am sorry for not visiting since, but you have to understand that the Elders have kept me extremely busy with charges and I don't want to go through the pain of losing another…' Sam trailed off.

Paige put her hand onto Sam's hand. He looked at his daughter.

'It's okay,' said Paige. 'I just… I don't know… It would be nice if you visited every now and then…'

Sam smiled weakly. Paige took her hand off Sam's hand and stood up.

'So, how did you know it was me?' repeated Paige.

Sam stood up. 'Paige, you are my daughter. The news has spread throughout the magical community that the Charmed Ones are dead. I sensed for you and knew you were still alive. I was content with knowing that you were safe. Who am I to rant about staying off the Elders' radar and trying to hide from magic?'

'Then why did you decide to look for me today? Albeit, it was very much a déjà vu moment to the state that I found you in when I first met you,' said Paige, blushing as she suddenly understood Sam's comment about not vomiting on his shoes – the very act that he had done to her _Jimmy Choos_ three years earlier.

'I decided to look for you today, because I sensed that something was wrong,' said Sam.

'Something's wrong with me?' said Paige, perplexed. 'What are you trying to insinuate?'

'Paige, you are not drunk… yet you managed to lose your balance and fall to the floor right in front of me,' Sam pointed out.

Paige sighed. 'That is only because of a stupid headache caused by me ignoring this constant ringing in my head.'

Sam furrowed his brow. 'The Elders think you are dead. You shouldn't have a charge, unless…'

'I have automatically been assigned the charge? Leo said something like that,' said Paige.

Sam beckoned for Paige to sit back down on the chair, so she did. Sam sat down on the chair opposite.

'Paige, if you want the ringing to stop, you have to go to your charge,' said Sam. 'Or at least start by sensing for their whereabouts… That will quell the headache and ringing for now…'

'I cannot use my powers. The Elders will be able to find me. If they find me, they find my sisters. That is not fair on them,' Paige said.

'I would be a hypocrite if I asked you to answer your charge's call,' said Sam.

'Oh great. You're the perfect person to give me advice on being a whitelighter,' said Paige sarcastically.

'Well, despite your tone and your reasoning, I might just have some good advice,' said Sam. 'Go to your charge. I will come with. Maybe my orbing will offset any chances of your power use being tracked.'

Paige sighed. 'I don't want to go to my charge though.'

Sam nodded. 'As soon as we have helped this charge of yours, I can help to make sure that the Elders do not find you or your sisters.'

'Don't you understand? I don't want to help–' Paige paused. 'Wait, I can help the charge, not get found out, _and_ have the ringing stop?'

Sam nodded. 'With my help, yes.'

Paige smiled. 'It's nice having a father that's an expert at staying below the radar.'

**...**

The teenage boy found himself walking along Prescott Street. It was the early hours of the morning and it was extremely dark out. The teenage boy could tell that he had come to a stop directly outside the abandoned pink Victorian manor even though it was silhouetted in the darkness.

The teenage boy could feel tears forming in his eyes. He wiped his eyes dry before walking up the manor steps. He stopped on the porch. It was no surprise to him that the front door was locked. He squinted at the wall next to the door. On that bit of wall, a wooden door appeared. The teenage boy pushed it open, entering the manor. As the teenage boy pushed it shut, he made it disappear, so as the wall could reform behind him.

The teenage boy found the staircase that led upstairs. He walked up the stairs until he came to a stop on the upper landing. All of the doors on the upper landing were shut. The teenage boy was about to enter one of the rooms when he noticed another staircase – the one that led to the attic.

Slowly the teenage boy made his way up the steps. He pushed against the attic door and it creaked open. He entered the attic. Moonlight poured in through one of the windows, allowing the teenage boy to see the contents of the attic. The walls of the attic were cluttered with antique furniture and to one side sat a sofa. In the middle of the attic stood a stand. However there was no book placed on top of it.

The teenage boy approached the empty stand. He ran his hand across the top of it. Suddenly, in the corner of his eye, the teenage boy saw blue and white orbs coalescing. The blue and white orbs disappeared to reveal Paige. She was shocked to see where she was – the attic in the manor.

'Hey!' Paige shouted angrily at the teenage boy. 'What are you doing in this house?'

Paige was momentarily distracted by blue and white orbs forming in the corner of the room as Sam appeared. The teenage boy took this chance to make a run for it.

'Hey! Wait!' shouted Paige, running after him.

The teenage boy reached the upper landing and continued down the next staircase until he was in the moonlit foyer. He was about to open the front door of the manor when Sam orbed in between him and the door. The teenage boy scowled. He turned around and noticed Paige standing at the bottom of the steps.

The teenage boy ran into the living room. Paige and Sam followed him. As far as they knew, he had no way out from the living room. Paige's jaw dropped in shock as she saw the teenage boy exit through a wooden door that happened to be in their living room wall. The wooden door led straight outside. As the wooden door closed, it disappeared, turning back into an area of the living room wall.

'Who is that kid?' muttered Paige, slumping onto the living room sofa. She was partially happy to be back in the manor, but she knew she could not stay for long.

'It looks like your charge is a witch,' said Sam. 'I wonder why he was here.'

'I guess we should go and ask him,' said Paige, sighing as she stood back up.

Sam shook his head. 'You don't have to. Paige, you answered the call. That is all you had to do. Although that kid is still your charge, unless he specifically calls for you, you won't get that ringing in your head. We need to get you out of here if you truly want to stay under the radar.'

Paige sighed. 'I guess you are right…'

'Do you need a lift back to wherever you have been staying?' asked Sam.

Paige shook her head. 'Don't worry. I don't mind orbing.'

'I thought you want to stay under the radar,' Sam pointed out.

Paige shrugged. 'That was until I found my new charge snooping around _my_ former place of residence.'

With those words, Paige orbed back to the hotel room.

**...**

Piper and Leo were fast asleep in the double bed and Phoebe was curled up asleep on her makeshift bed. The alarm clock in the room read '_03:27_'.

The sudden burst of bright blue and white lights in the hotel room caused the hotel room occupants to wake up startled.

'Oh no! They have found us!' shouted Phoebe, half in a daze from being woken up. Phoebe threw a sock at the figure that had orbed in.

The room was too dim for Paige to see the sock flying in her direction, so she was a little unsure of what she felt hit her on the shoulder. The hotel room lights suddenly switched on. Leo was standing by the light switch, wiping his eyes. Piper was sitting up on the bed, staring at Paige, and Phoebe was sitting on her makeshift bed, yawning.

Paige suddenly noticed the sock draped over her left shoulder and flicked it off.

'Paige, did you _orb_ in here?' asked Piper.

'I refuse to answer that, because you know the answer _and_ I am tired. I want to go to sleep,' said Paige.

Paige picked up her pyjamas and wandered into the bathroom to change in privacy. She shut the door behind her.

Piper got out of bed and began knocking on the bathroom door.

'Paige! Paige! What happened to the part about not using our powers? What makes you exempt from all of this, huh?' Piper shouted.

Leo put his hand on Piper's shoulder. Piper turned to face Leo.

'Piper, you and Phoebe are going to the funeral later. The Elders will figure out then and there that you are back – whether you are in disguise or not,' said Leo. 'How is Paige using her powers any different to what you are going to do?'

'It is different, because Phoebe and I are going to the funeral to speak to Dad. That does not even involve using our powers! Paige, on the other hand, is using her powers for… for…' Piper trailed off as the bathroom door opened.

Paige walked out of the bathroom dressed in her pyjamas.

'For your information, Piper, I have a charge to find,' said Paige. 'And yes, I could hear you from within the bathroom.'

Phoebe was now fully awake enough to comprehend what was going on.

'Paige, is that ringing still irritating you?' asked Phoebe.

Paige shook her head. 'It is gone now, because I visited my charge earlier.'

'Then why do you still feel obligated to help? I thought you liked staying under the radar,' said Piper.

'I don't necessarily want to help this charge. I want information from him,' said Paige.

'Information?' said Phoebe, scratching her head in confusion.

'Yes, information,' said Paige. 'I want to know why he was in the manor.'

'_The_ manor? _That_ manor? As in _our _manor?' said Piper, perplexed.

Paige nodded as she dragged a pillow and folded duvet out from underneath the sofa and set them up on top of the sofa.

'He got away from me, but I am going to find him tomorrow,' said Paige determinedly. She lay down on the sofa, and closed her eyes.

Piper and Leo switched off the light as they got back into their bed. Phoebe lay back down in her makeshift bed.

Suddenly in the darkness of the hotel room, Paige asked, 'Did I hear you say something about going to a funeral? Whose is it?'

**...**

'It will be our funeral if Xalinth finds us in here, Pognor,' said a demon.

Two demons stood in the cavern beneath the manor's basement. The torches were still flaring, but apart from the two of them it was empty.

Pognor shook his head and looked at the demon who had spoken.

'Repugnus, we may have fled the scene during the witches' attack, but Xalinth will understand –' began Pognor before the other demon, Repugnus, interrupted him.

'Understand? Since when do demons have the ability to understand?' growled Repugnus. 'We should get out of here before Xalinth returns. I heard that the teenage witch made him fall through the floor. Xalinth will be angry for being humiliated like that. He _will _take his anger out on us.'

Suddenly Xalinth flamed in behind the two demons. His expression was one of pure rage. Pognor and Repugnus turned to face him. They bowed.

'Xalinth, we have returned to make sure your plan succeeds,' said Pognor. 'As you may have noticed, we are the only two loyal enough to return. That adolescent witch does not scare us.'

Through gritted teeth, Xalinth said to Repugnus, 'You stay here and continue work on penetrating that ceiling.' Xalinth then turned to Pognor and said, 'You must go to the surface world and find that adolescent for me.'

'Do you want me to kill him?' asked Pognor.

Xalinth shook his head. 'Bring him here alive.'

**...**

Piper, Leo, Phoebe, and Paige were making their way down Fifth Avenue which was comprised of many different clothes shops. The sun had been up for a while now as it was approaching ten in the morning.

Phoebe turned to her younger sister to notice that she was walking with her eyes closed.

'Er, Paige?' said Phoebe.

Paige opened her eyes and stopped walking. 'Yes?'

Phoebe stopped walking too. 'Why were you walking with your eyes shut?'

'I am trying to sense for my charge, but… I don't think I am going to find him again unless he calls for my help – involuntarily or actively,' said Paige.

'Are you concerned for the kid? Or is it because of where you found him?' asked Phoebe.

Paige sighed. 'Is it bad that I am more concerned about what he was doing in the manor than his well being?' After hearing herself say that, Paige added, 'Ugh! I am a terrible person… a terrible whitelighter.'

'Paige, you have every right to be sick of magic. We have been saving both the magical and non-magical community for so long now and we deserve a break from it – without having to hide who we are,' said Phoebe reassuringly.

Piper poked her head out of a shop that she and Leo had entered, having only just noticed that her sisters were no longer with them.

'Hey! Are you two coming? Or do you want Leo to choose your dresses for you?' Piper called across the street, a mischievous grin on her face.

Phoebe and Paige exchanged exaggerated worried looks at the prospect of Leo choosing their outfits. They quickly broke into a run, slowing down as they reached the shop.

The disguised three sisters and Leo spent the next few hours clothes shopping. As they were low on funds, they had to keep their small budget in mind, but that did not stop the sisters spending time looking through all the possible outfits. Meanwhile Leo found a suit that he liked within the first few minutes and had to wait for each of the sisters to decide on something they liked.

**...**

The teenage boy wandered around his empty, quiet house. He was wearing a smart pale blue shirt with a dark grey tie, black trousers, and black freshly shined shoes. He looked in a mirror to make sure his short blonde hair was tidy. He had to look presentable for the place he was about to go.

Turning away from the mirror, the teenage boy approached his front door. In front of the door was a crystal. He had had to surround the inside of his house with crystals as soon as he had gotten home in order to stop any demons finding him. He was sure that they would be looking for him after what he and his father had done.

He picked up the crystal, moving it to the side, so as he could open the front door. Leaving his house was going to be dangerous, but he was not going to miss his own father's funeral.

The teenage boy exited his house, walking casually down the street with an athame in his pocket in case a demon tried to attack him in broad daylight.

**...**

The undercover Charmed Ones and their ex-whitelighter walked along a busy street. They were all dressed in funeral attire. The eldest Charmed One wore a long elegant black dress with a sweater to match. Her husband wore a smart suit. The psychic witch wore a slender sleeveless black dress. Lastly the youngest of the group wore a dark grey waistcoat, a white under top, and stylish black trousers.

The party of four came to a stop outside the building that the memorial service was being held at. Piper squeezed Leo's hand, as she wondered whether or not this was the right thing to do. Leo smiled at her reassuringly. Phoebe watched as other people made their way up the steps towards the building's entrance. Some she recognised, others she did not. Meanwhile Paige shuddered at the thought that they were about to encounter a memorial service held for them.

Phoebe was the first to be brave enough to start the ascent of the steps. Paige almost immediately followed her. With an encouraging nod from Leo, the married couple began to make their way up the steps in pursuit of the single sisters.

Their memorial service was taking place in a hall on the fourth floor. However as they made their way up the stairs, they passed other halls where other funerals or memorials were taking place.

The hall where their memorial service was being held was relatively big. There were rows of seats filling the hall. The seats were mostly empty at the moment as the few people that had already arrived were wandering around the hall, chatting in small groups, or approaching Victor Bennett with their condolences.

Along the far wall, there were four photos. One of the photos was a group photo of Piper, Paige, and Phoebe. The other three photos were individual shots of the sisters. Towards the middle of the far side, there was a small platform. Presumably this would be for the speaker to use when the service began.

Victor Bennett stood to one side of the room. Little Chris held onto Victor's hand. The brunette haired toddler wore a cute little suit. He seemed intrigued by the number of people entering the hall, his eyes looking around the whole time. The blonde haired boy known as Wyatt was sitting on the chair nearest to the photo of Piper, staring at it.

'Wyatt,' Leo muttered to himself. He had caught sight of his son and realised that their son missed his parents just as much as they missed their son.

Leo walked forward, but Piper held him back. She had evidently heard what her husband had voiced, but she knew that they could not approach their eldest son – not yet.

'This is too much to handle,' Piper whispered.

Leo nodded. 'Maybe we should speak to Victor first.'

'Not just yet,' answered Piper. 'I want to see who else is here.'

'Well, I think that's the detective over there,' said Phoebe, who had been listening in on the conversation.

Phoebe was pointing over to the back corner of the hall where a tall man wearing a trench coat on top of a suit stood. The man was holding an open notepad in one hand and a pen in the other. It was difficult to tell where he was looking as sunglasses hid his eyes, but it was possible that he was observing the room for anything suspicious. In addition to all of this, a walkie-talkie was attached to the belt loop of his trench coat.

Some people had begun to gather around the photos, paying their respects by placing flowers down. This drew the three sisters' attentions. Though none of them were willing to admit it, they were each fascinated by the idea of finding out who had visited to pay their respects.

Paige began to walk towards her own photo. She stopped when she almost immediately recognised one of the bystanders.

'Glen!' Paige spoke up.

The sandy haired man – Paige's best friend since forever – known as Glen Belland looked around to see who had called his name.

'Sorry. Do I know you?' Glen asked.

Paige blushed. This had been the first time she had seen Glen in a long time. In her surprise, Paige had forgotten that she was currently under a glamour spell, and therefore that he would not recognise her – add to that the more obvious fact that this was a memorial service for her, so despite his knowledge of magic, Glen would probably be shocked to find out not only that Paige was faking her death, but also crashing her own funeral.

'Oh. Sorry, no. I'm Jo,' said Paige, holding a hand out for Glen to shake. 'I'm a cousin of the Halliwell sisters. Paige told me a lot about you.'

Glen shook her hand. He had no reason not to be persuaded by the explanation.

Paige grimaced, suddenly avoiding eye contact with Glen. 'No… I can't do this…'

Glen raised an eyebrow, puzzled by the stranger's words. 'Can't do what?'

'Glen, I can't lie. Not to you,' Paige began to say. Her eyes wandered up to his. She took a deep breath before saying the words. 'Glen, it's me…'

On the way towards her own photo, Phoebe recognised a few faces. There was Elise chatting with someone else from the _Bay Mirror_. Then there were other co-workers that Phoebe recognised as well as a couple of distant family members – from Victor's side – that she remembered meeting at Prue's funeral.

Phoebe came to a halt as she saw a face that she recognised but could not put a name to. The woman looked like she was somewhere in her early to mid-twenties. The woman had long blonde hair and was wearing a dark blue dress. Phoebe knew she recognised her from somewhere, but she could not remember where from.

Noticing that the woman had noticed her staring, Phoebe approached her and introduced herself. 'Hi. I'm Julie, a distant cousin of the sisters. How do you know them?'

The woman smiled pleasantly. 'I only knew two of the sisters for a short time. I met them seven years ago, so they probably wouldn't even recognise me. When I heard what had happened, I felt obliged to show up and pay my respects.'

Phoebe smiled approvingly, hiding her puzzlement over trying to identify the woman. 'The three sisters have done a lot for the local community over the years. I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name.'

The woman smiled. 'Aviva.'

Phoebe's eyes widened in surprise. Aviva was one of the first innocents she, Piper, and Prue had helped in their first year of becoming witches. The reason Phoebe had not recognised her was because Aviva had looked so different seven years earlier, especially considering she had short dyed hair back then. In fact, if Phoebe remembered correctly, Aviva was a witch.

Piper and Leo had not been able to take their eyes off their unhappy eldest son. The watchful parents made their way over to the lonely little boy. However before they were able to reach Wyatt, a teenage boy wearing a grey suit approached him and started to try and amuse the toddler by playing a small game of catch with a red ball. The teenage boy would throw the ball towards Wyatt; Wyatt would catch it, and throw it back. The game continued in this repetitive nature.

The teenage boy caught the ball and stopped when he noticed Piper and Leo staring at him.

As a technique to figure out who the teenage boy was, Leo asked him, 'Is that your little brother?'

Piper frowned at Leo for a split second. He knew as well as she did that the little boy was Wyatt and therefore that he did not have an older brother. However she suddenly realised what Leo was trying to do, so remained silent, waiting for the teenage boy to reply.

The teenage boy shook his head. 'Nah. He's Piper Halliwell's kid. I just thought he looked a little lonely. I know what it's like to lose your parents.'

Piper smiled sadly. 'Thanks for keeping him company at a time like this.'

'No problem,' said the teenage boy.

'I'm Louis and this is my wife, Jenny,' said Leo. 'What's your name?'

The teenage boy threw the ball back towards Wyatt while replying with: 'Tyler. Tyler Michaels.'

'How do you know the family?' Piper asked, wanting to find out more.

Tyler shrugged nonchalantly as he caught the ball that Wyatt had returned to him. 'The family helped me out of an ordeal once. Paige Matthews was my social worker at one point, and Piper Halliwell and her husband, Leo, helped me out of an issue with some… er… bullies, before binding my… er… book for me.'

Despite Tyler's replacement of the words _demons_ with _bullies_ and _powers_ with _book_, Piper and Leo suddenly made the connection as to who he was. Over three years earlier, they had helped the ex-Firestarter, who was temporarily their innocent.

**...**

Pognor and a lower-level demon shimmered into the corridor outside of a hall a few floors below the one that the Charmed Ones were currently on. They looked into the hall and spotted the teenage boy straight away.

The two demons entered the relatively small hall. There were ten or twelve chairs placed in the hall. A closed casket sat at the far end of the hall. The teenage boy stood by the casket as a queue, consisting of five or six people, approached him to say their condolences.

The two demons joined the queue, not wanting to arouse any suspicion. They wanted to catch the teenage boy off guard.

Eventually the two demons were only one person away from confronting the teenage boy. The woman in front of them began speaking to the boy.

'I am so sorry for your loss, Will,' said the woman. 'Your father was a good man.'

'Thank you,' said Will.

The woman smiled respectfully before parting ways with the blonde teenage boy called Will. Pognor and his demonic accomplice were now at the front of the queue.

'Good afternoon,' Will said, greeting them, unaware of who they were.

Pognor snarled. 'It is, isn't it?'

The final visitor exited the hall. Will and the two demons were the only people left in the hall. The nameless demon allowed a fireball to visibly form in his hand. Will's eyes widened in horror.

**...**

Piper and Leo were still off to one side at the memorial service talking to Tyler, who was still keeping Wyatt entertained with a game of catch. Phoebe and Paige had regrouped after their respective conversations with people they had not seen in ages had finished.

'I saw you chatting to Glen,' said Phoebe. 'I know it must have been difficult to lie to him about who you are.'

Paige frowned sheepishly. She knew that Phoebe would be mad if she found out that Paige had told Glen everything.

Phoebe sighed, misinterpreting Paige's silence. 'I know it's not fair on you, lying to him. Especially considering that Piper and I are about to confront Dad.'

Paige nodded, and then decided to try and change the topic to something else. 'So –' However Paige was cut off as the ringing sound suddenly became audible in her head again.

'Paige?' questioned Phoebe, who had noticed the change in her younger sister's expression.

'I – I'm being called,' Paige responded, her eyes wandering as she tried to sense the location she would find the teenage boy at. Paige frowned as she rested her sight on Phoebe. 'He's… I think he's downstairs.' Paige grimaced. 'I think I am going to have to crash _another_ funeral.'

Phoebe smirked. 'Don't act like our memorial service was the first funeral you've ever crashed. I remember two that you've crashed over the past four years. Anyway, go and find him. Piper won't mind if you leave.'

Paige nodded. She ran into the empty corridor before orbing out.

**...**

Will dived out of the way of a fireball. He made a run for the door, but the nameless demon shimmered in front of it, blocking the teenager's path.

'Don't give him the chance to use his power or he'll escape!' yelled Pognor.

The nameless demon nodded. He threw a fireball at the teenage witch. Will ducked. While on the ground, he pulled his athame out of his pocket. As he stood up, he propelled the hand holding the athame towards the nameless demon. However, the nameless demon grabbed Will's arm, holding it still. The nameless demon sneered wickedly.

While the nameless demon had Will distracted, Pognor formed a fireball in his hand. Xalinth had ordered them to bring the boy back alive, but that did not mean that Pognor could not bring him back unconscious. Pognor threw the fireball in the direction of the teenage boy.

'Fireball!'

The fireball was engulfed in blue and white orbs. This caused the fireball to change direction and head back towards Pognor. The fireball hit Pognor, but did not cause a dent in his demeanour. While Will continued to struggle against the strength of the nameless demon, Pognor turned to see the whitelighter-witch that had interrupted the fight.

Paige stood facing Pognor. The demon had no idea who she was other than that she was a whitelighter with extra powers that an ordinary whitelighter should not have.

'Who are you?' Pognor asked.

'A funeral crasher, but I am probably a lot more welcome here than you,' said Paige.

'Didn't anyone ever tell you it's not polite to crash a funeral?' growled the hypocritical Pognor.

'Demons!' Paige shouted. She made a sweeping motion with her arm as she said it. Both Pognor and the nameless demon were telekinetically orbed into the wall.

Now that the nameless demon was no longer gripping his arm, Will darted for the door. Glancing quickly between the two demons that were getting to their feet and the strange teenage boy that was running away again, Paige headed after Will.

Paige caught up with him on the staircase, orbing into his path to stop him from proceeding any further.

'Kid! I need to speak to you!' Paige said stubbornly.

'Well, if you haven't noticed, there are currently two demons after me, so I think a conversation with a whitelighter can be held off for now,' said Will, trying to get past Paige, but she was not letting him.

'Look, I am no ordinary whitelighter, I am a witch too, and I can help you,' Paige explained hurriedly.

Will glanced frantically behind him. The sound of running footsteps was getting louder. The demons were not far from catching up.

Turning back to Paige, he said, 'Fine. Just orb us out of here first.'

'Fine,' said Paige, smiling, grabbing the teenager's hand.

Paige orbed the two of them out of the stairwell into a very familiar setting. Will recognised the place straight away. It was the living room of Halliwell manor, the place where he had first ran into the stubborn whitelighter-witch.

'Why did you bring me here?' Will asked hastily. 'This is exactly where the demons wanted me to go!'

Paige furrowed her brow, confused. 'Okay, kid. You need to start talking. What's going on?'

**...**

Back in the hall at their memorial service, the two Halliwell sisters and Leo had joined an ever growing queue of people saying their condolences to Victor. There were a number of people in front of them and the queue was moving somewhat slowly.

'I cannot believe how many people that we have met only once in the past have turned up,' Phoebe said.

Piper sighed. 'Yeah, but we've given up…'

Phoebe shrugged. 'We deserve to give up. We never wanted to do this.'

Piper rolled her eyes. 'Oh come on. You so wanted to at the beginning. You're the one who embraced being a you-know-what first.' Since they were in a busy queue at the moment, they did not want to say anything that could be overheard the wrong way.

'I found the idea of…' Phoebe lowered her voice so as only Piper and Leo could hear for the next part, '…magical powers…' before raising her voice to a normal level again, '…interesting.'

'Yeah, but you also enjoyed helping people,' Piper pointed out.

'And you didn't?' Phoebe questioned.

'Well, obviously I did enjoy helping others,' said Piper. 'It was the only thing that made me believe that being a you-know-what could be a good thing.'

'Then when did that change for you?' Phoebe asked.

Piper took a deep breath before saying, 'Probably when Prue died. Everything changed and despite the fact that we were still helping people, I guess I focused on the fact that it was interrupting the life I was trying to have.' Piper narrowed her eyes sceptically as she added, 'Anyway, you can't judge me. You definitely started hating this lifestyle after a while too!'

'Well, yeah. Most likely because I finally had a life of my own: A boyfriend, then a job, and then a marriage. Okay, so that didn't work out, but the job's still there. Or at least it was, until we…' Phoebe paused to lower her voice, concluding with: '…faked our deaths.'

Suddenly the person who had been standing in front of them in the queue turned around. He was a tall teenage boy with glasses.

'Excuse me, but did I hear you mention Prue Halliwell a few minutes ago?' the boy asked.

Piper, Phoebe, and Leo exchanged looks. Piper and Phoebe nodded slowly, worried about what else he may have heard. Leo, however, smiled.

'Max!' Leo greeted.

The boy known as Max looked puzzled. 'How do you know my name?'

'Er…' Leo said.

From hearing the name, Piper instantly recognised the boy. He was Max Franklin. Although he had been Prue's innocent and Leo's charge, Piper had met him when he came to Prue's funeral four years earlier – Max left before Phoebe spoke to Paige, receiving a premonition, and before the demonic bounty hunters came for Cole, ruining what remained of the funeral. Max was a witch with the power of psychokinesis and had been Leo's charge up until Leo became an Elder. Although Leo was mortal now, he still knew all of his previous charges whenever he bumped into them.

'My husband knew your ex-whitelighter. Your ex-whitelighter talked about his charges a lot,' Piper said quickly.

Max looked a little taken aback that these strangers were so open about magic. Lowering his voice, he said, 'Are you witches too?'

Phoebe nodded. 'We are, but let's keep that between the four of us.'

Max agreed. He suddenly noticed that the line had moved forward a little, so went to walk forward.

As they moved forward in the line, Piper and Phoebe suddenly noticed that Leo was now looking in the opposite direction. The ex-whitelighter was watching Detective Riley, who was still standing in the corner of the hall.

'Honey, is everything okay?' Piper asked, catching Leo's attention.

Leo turned to Piper and feigned a smile. 'I want to keep my guard up with that detective here. We may want Victor to find out, but we definitely don't want him to.'

'It's okay. We'll be careful,' Piper assured Leo.

Leo let out a sigh. 'I know you will. I just don't trust cops at funerals.'

**...**

Paige peeked out of the living room window between the closed curtains. She noticed that a police car was stationed on the street. Paige quickly ducked out of view of the window, allowing the curtains to remain closed as she turned back towards Will.

'You're lucky the cops weren't watching over the manor last night when you did your disappearing door trick, kid,' said Paige. 'Now start talking.'

Will shook his head. 'Do you not listen? The demons will find me here so easily! This is practically their territory!'

Paige furrowed her brow. Rather than asking the teenage boy why he thought that, she decided that the pressure of staying somewhere that worried him would cause him to tell her more. Therefore, Paige said, 'Then you may want to talk fast, kid, because we're not leaving until you've explained everything.'

Will sighed in exasperation. He slumped down onto the sofa. This caused a burst of dust to rise from the sofa. Paige tried to hide a dismayed look at how dirty the manor had become in just over a month.

'My name is Will Cooper. I'm a witch and I come from a long line of witches. All that was left of my family was my father and I,' Will began. 'When the Charmed Ones died, my family and a group of other magically inclined families knew that we could not stand down and let evil win. There will always be demons and there should always be witches to stop them.'

'This group of witches… who are they?' Paige asked while Will was pausing for breath.

Will shrugged. 'Never met them. My father and I knew that we were not the only witches out there that were snooping around for information on what was going on in the evil community. That's the only reason I know there may be others.'

Paige nodded. She took a seat on an armchair – which also erupted with dust once sat on – as she waited for Will to continue.

'My father found out about an upper-level demon trying to steal the Nexus…' Will continued.

Paige shook her head. 'That was Zankou. The Charmed Ones stopped him and destroyed the Nexus in the process.'

'Zankou's not the only one with that plan. Another upper-level demon, Xalinth, was working on stealing the Nexus at the same time as Zankou, and is still in the process of doing so,' said Will.

'That still cannot be right. He won't find anything,' protested Paige. 'My si – I mean, the Charmed Ones destroyed the Nexus along with Zankou. There is no Nexus down there to take.'

Will shrugged. 'Xalinth doesn't seem to think all hope is lost or he wouldn't be doing it. The point is that Xalinth has been working on stealing the Nexus, and he still is. Xalinth is trying to access the Nexus from below. He had demons digging upwards from below this manor's basement.'

'Wait. Why upwards?' Paige asked. 'The manor has been empty for over a month now. If the Nexus wasn't destroyed and is still there, why hasn't he tried accessing it from inside the basement?'

'From what I've heard, he's a demon that likes to work covertly,' explained Will. 'I guess he would have attracted too much attention from other demons if he were to change his plan after the defeat of Zankou and the Charmed Ones.' Will paused as his expression became grave. 'My father and I attempted an attack the other day to diminish the number of demons working for Xalinth. We succeeded in slowing Xalinth's plan down, but the success came at the cost of my father…'

'I am sorry for your loss,' Paige said respectfully. 'Sorry if this seems disrespectful at all, but I found you here in the early hours of the morning. Why did you return if you knew the manor was unsafe?'

Will coughed to clear his throat before he continued. 'I came back to look around the manor for anything the Charmed Ones may have had that could be useful in an attack against Xalinth…'

Paige nodded. 'Zankou definitely wasn't the first demon that had attempted to steal the Nexus, so I can see why you would think the Charmed Ones might be used to protecting the Nexus.'

'Yeah…' muttered Will.

'I hate to break it to you, but Zankou was no easy demon to defeat. Otherwise the Charmed Ones wouldn't currently be presumed dead,' Paige said.

'Which is why I have to face Xalinth and vanquish him myself,' stated Will. 'Once I find out how, that is.'

'Will, you can't do this alone,' said Paige. 'I am going to help you…'

Will shook his head. 'No. I have to do this alone… I have to…' Will stood up, a determined expression on his face. 'I don't know how yet, but… I am going to vanquish Xalinth.'

Paige stood up too. 'Listen, you're not doing this alone.'

'No, you're not going to help me. This has nothing to do with you. Xalinth killed my father. This is my fight,' said Will.

Paige smiled. 'I think I can convince you that this is also my fight. Technically my sisters' fight too, but… I can fight on behalf of them.'

Will looked puzzled at this statement. His eyes widened as Paige became engulfed in silver orbs. When the silver orbs disappeared, the disguise was gone and Paige was back to looking like herself – her dark hair had grown longer over the month that she had spent in hiding. The initial surprise that the female witch had been under a glamour spell had worn off. Will did not look impressed.

'What do disguises have to do with anything?' Will asked.

Paige looked a little offended by that remark. 'You mean you don't know who I am?'

'You're the extremely stubborn whitelighter-witch that orbed us to a manor under threat by demons,' said Will.

Paige rolled her eyes. She wandered over to the mantelpiece and picked up a photo frame containing a photo of her sisters and herself.

'Do you not know a Charmed One when you see one?' Paige said, handing Will the photo frame.

'I've never met a Charmed One before. I've only heard of them,' Will explained. He looked down at the photo for the first time and then over at Paige. He had to double-check that the person standing in front of him was the person in the photo. 'It can't be… They're dead.'

Paige shook her head. 'We're _presumed_ dead… Trust me, being dead is a totally different thing. I would know. When you're a Charmed One, death happens a lot.'

Will put the photo frame down on the dusty coffee table. 'If you're a whitelighter-witch… That makes you Paige Matthews, right?'

Paige grinned. 'The one and only. If the demons are attacking this house, then that makes it our business too.'

'The Charmed Ones are alive!'

Paige and Will turned around. The two demons that had attacked Will at the funeral were standing in the living room, fireballs alight in each of their hands.

Keeping her eyes on the currently stationary fireballs, Paige said, 'So neither of these two are Xalinth, right? They're just the lackeys?'

'Yep,' said Will through gritted teeth. He was preparing to grab his athame out of his pocket.

Paige directed her next sentence towards Pognor and the nameless demon. 'Sorry guys, but I really don't have time for dealing with demonic cronies. I'm going to go straight to the top.' Paige grabbed Will's hand and orbed the two of them out of the living room.

Pognor and the nameless demon had released their fireballs just as Paige orbed out with Will. The fireballs went straight through the disappearing blue and white orbs, hitting the closed curtains. The curtains burst into flames.

**...**

In the police car outside the manor on Prescott Street, a sandy haired officer was keeping watch over the manor. His eyes widened in alarm as the curtains behind one of the downstairs windows caught alight.

The officer picked up his walkie-talkie and switched it on.

'Riley? This is Sanders speaking. There is movement at the manor, I repeat, movement at the manor,' the officer, Inspector David Sanders, said into the walkie-talkie. His eyes were firmly planted on the burning curtains as he waited for a reply.

The reply came relatively quickly: '_Riley here. I can't get there as back up for you – I don't want to leave the memorial service just yet. Call for other back up and keep me updated_.'

'Understood. Over and out,' said Sanders, switching off his walkie-talkie. He put the radio device back into his pocket.

Ignoring the advice of calling for back up, Sanders stepped out of his car. Making sure that he had a gun on him, Sanders approached the manor cautiously.

**...**

In the basement of the manor, blue and white orbs flew towards the floor, but bounced upwards as they materialised into Paige and Will. Paige and Will went toppling onto the debri-filled basement floor.

'Ow,' said Paige, sitting up. 'Why couldn't I orb down there?'

Will got to his feet. 'Xalinth must have the place protected from whitelighters. Witches can't teleport, but whitelighters can, so it makes sense to have that sort of a barrier up.'

Paige stood up. 'You couldn't have mentioned that before?'

Will rolled his eyes. 'It's not like you discussed your plan before orbing!'

The sound of a slow taunting clapping was heard. The two witches looked into a shadowy corner of the basement to see a demon emerging from it.

'So those two demons were telling the truth a moment ago. The Charmed Ones – or at least one of them – are alive. Hmm… Maybe I shouldn't have vanquished those two demons when I thought they were lying,' the demon said maliciously.

'Xalinth,' Will said, narrowing his eyes.

The demon smirked at being identified by the young witch. Xalinth nodded. 'That's me, and you… you're the boy that I was looking for all along.' Xalinth let out a callous laugh as he added, 'And you were delivered to me, not by the demons that I sent looking for you, but by a Charmed One!'

Paige scowled at Xalinth. 'You're not going to get Will or the Nexus! Considering my sisters and I came out of our battle against Zankou in one piece, you're going to be a piece of cake to vanquish!'

'Oh really?' said Xalinth, unconvinced.

All eyes suddenly darted towards the basement door as someone shouting 'Police! Show yourself!' was heard.

While Paige was distracted by the fact that there was a policeman in a house currently containing an upper-level demon, Xalinth launched an energy ball in their direction. Will dived out of the way. He hit his head on a piece of debri, knocking himself out. Paige orbed on the spot at the last second. The energy ball hit a loose beam behind Paige. As she orbed back to where she had been standing the beam fell onto her, trapping her arm. The agony was so painful that she could not focus on orbing out from under the beam.

Xalinth approached Paige, a new energy ball in his hand. Paige stared up at him, waiting for him to throw it at her. However, Xalinth let the energy ball fizzle out just as the basement door burst open.

Xalinth sneered. 'I'll let the mortals find you,' he whispered. 'It wouldn't be much of a fight if I didn't get to face all three Charmed Ones, would it?'

With those words, Xalinth grabbed Will's shoulder, and flamed out.

Inspector Sanders came running down the basement steps. His eyes widened in surprise as he saw the youngest missing resident of the manor caught under the debris of the basement.

Sanders picked up his walkie-talkie and spoke into it. 'I need all units on Prescott Street and an ambulance. One of the victims has been found. I repeat, she has been found.'

**...**

In the queue at the memorial service, Max had just finished speaking to Victor. As Max bade goodbye to Victor, he made his way out of the line. Piper, Phoebe, and Leo were now at the front.

'Hi…' said Piper.

'Good afternoon,' said Victor sombrely. Little Chris was no longer standing with him. He had wandered off to join in the game of catch with Wyatt and Tyler.

'Hey,' said Phoebe, feigning a smile.

'So… How did you know the girls?' Victor asked the three people stood in front of him.

Piper, Phoebe, and Leo exchanged looks. Piper was the first to reply:

'We knew them, because… because… We are –'

Detective Riley came running over to Victor. The detective had his walkie-talkie in his hand. He pulled Victor over to one side.

'Hey, buddy! We were talking!' Piper yelled in frustration.

However, the contents of what Riley was saying to Victor caused Piper to stop yelling. Piper, Phoebe, and Leo were close enough to hear everything Riley was saying.

'We have new evidence that suggests the sisters are alive,' Riley said.

'What's the evidence?' Victor asked, concerned.

Riley took a deep breath before revealing: 'One of the sisters has been found alive at the manor.'

**To be continued...**

* * *

**A/N:** Please review and let me know what you think.


	2. Mostly Charmless (Part Two)

**A/N:** What can I start with other than thanking you all for your positive reviews regarding the first chapter? I will admit that I forgot that they retrieve the Book of Shadows from the trunk in the attic in the canon season eight. In this version, you will see that it was kept elsewhere. Also, Phoebe starts talking about psychology towards the end of the chapter - it could be completely wrong, but I'm no expert in psychology and it fit, so... sorry if it is complete rubbish. Also I know there was a Nexus solution in _The Importance of Being Phoebe_, but that one should never have worked, so it won't work in this one either. Enjoy the second part of the two part premiere for my version of season eight.

* * *

**Mostly Charmless (Part Two)**

**_July 1_****_st_****_ 2005_**

Still in their disguises, Piper and Phoebe entered a quiet private hospital room. Piper shut the door behind her while Phoebe ran straight over to the bed where their raven haired sister lay.

Paige sat up in her hospital bed. 'Piper? Phoebe? What took you so long to get here?'

Phoebe frowned. 'We couldn't exactly run in midway through surgery with Piper freezing the place, now could we?'

Paige nodded. 'Fair point. Wait… How did you two get in here without I.D.?'

'I may not have used it in over a month, but my freezing power still does a fine job on sneaking past people,' Piper said proudly. 'Leo staid outside to stop people entering once the freeze has worn off.'

Piper grimaced as she noticed the cast covering Paige's left arm. Paige blushed when she noticed Piper looking at it.

'I have to wear this for six whole weeks,' Paige said sheepishly.

'I don't think Piper was going to ask about that,' Phoebe said. 'I think the question would have been: What were you doing in the manor that led to this?'

'Right!' said Paige, becoming more focused. 'Okay, you two have got to look up Xalinth in the Book _and_ find Will before it's too late.'

Piper looked puzzled. 'Who's Xalinth and who's Will?'

Paige sighed. 'Xalinth's the demon trying to steal the Nexus – and before you say it, I also thought it was destroyed in our last battle, but he does not seem to think so – and Will is my charge, which could also make him our innocent.'

'_Our_ innocent?' Piper questioned. 'Are you implying that we're back?'

'Well, I'm back. In the magical community and in the non-magical world: I'm known to be alive,' Paige said. 'It's up to you two about what you're going to do. Whatever you decide, I need your help with saving Will.'

The door opened. Victor entered hastily. A still-in-disguise Leo ran in behind him, trying to stop him.

'Paige, you need to tell me what's going on,' Victor said. He came to a stop as he noticed the two women standing in the hospital room with Paige. He obviously recognised them from the funeral. Looking from Piper to Phoebe and then to Leo who was behind him, Victor asked, 'Who are you people?'

Leo shut the door so as no one in the corridor might hear what was about to be said. Piper gulped as she prepared herself for her father's reaction.

'Dad, it's us,' said Piper.

Leo offered Victor a chair as he suddenly looked very weak. He almost fell onto the chair in his surprise at the revelation that his daughters were alive and speaking to him.

'I may not look like myself right now, but I – I'm Piper,' Piper continued.

Before Victor had the chance to make a reply, Phoebe added, 'Hi Dad… It's me. Phoebe.'

Victor looked over at Leo. The stunned man managed to say, 'Which must make you Leo?' When Leo nodded, Victor looked back over at his disguised daughters. 'You're alive?'

Piper and Phoebe nodded. They hugged their father.

'I hate to break up this family reunion, but…' Paige said awkwardly.

Piper nodded. 'We've got an innocent to save. You're right.'

Paige smiled. 'So you don't mind doing this?'

Supporting Piper's decision, Phoebe answered with: 'Of course not.'

Paige furrowed her brow. 'What changed your minds? I am pretty sure everything I did yesterday was against your rules.'

Piper blushed. 'Let's just say that the guests at our funeral yesterday showed Phoebe and I that maybe… just maybe… we had forgotten what being the Charmed Ones was all about…'

'Helping the innocents,' Phoebe concluded.

**...**

The cavern below Halliwell manor consisted of only three occupants. Repugnus was pushing a wheelbarrow full of rubble from above to the side of the cavern. Xalinth was pacing the floor, considering his next move. He looked over at his captive who was chained to one of the crumbly walls. To stop the teenage witch from using his power to escape, he had been blindfolded.

Repugnus stopped pushing the wheelbarrow and turned to face Xalinth.

'Why is the adolescent witch still alive?' Repugnus asked. 'He made a fool out of you. He should pay for what he did.'

'He will,' Xalinth replied, coming to a halt and facing Repugnus. 'For now, the teenage witch is the main bait for drawing the two remaining Charmed Ones out of hiding.'

'The main bait? As in there is more than one use of bait?' Repugnus questioned.

'Not exactly, but what irks a Charmed One more than one of their own being hurt?' was Xalinth's rhetorical reply.

Repugnus nodded. 'That's why you let that nosy Charmed One survive.'

'By the time they get here, I _will_ have possession of the Nexus,' said Xalinth, indirectly ordering Repugnus to continue his work.

'You'll never get the Nexus!' Will yelled.

Xalinth smirked at his prisoner. 'I will succeed; I get the unexpected joy of killing the Charmed Ones; and you will pay.'

**...**

Up above in the basement of Halliwell manor, Detective Riley and Inspector Sanders were looking at the scene. There was debris everywhere, just like a month ago when they had first inspected the basement. However there were a couple more newly fallen beams covering the floor.

'How much do you think it's going to cost to put this basement back in one piece?' Sanders asked.

Riley shrugged. 'Doesn't matter. It's not our problem. Our problem is finding out how Miss Matthews got here and where she has been over the past month. She may be able to help us find her sisters.'

Sanders nodded. He knelt down and brushed some rubble off the floor. His eyes widened in surprise as he noticed something in the concrete floor. Currently blocked off by a heavy broken beam was a wooden hatch.

'Riley, you're not going to believe what I have just found…' Sanders commented.

Riley narrowed his eyes sceptically. 'What'd you find?'

'I think… There may be another room below this basement…' Sanders replied.

Riley knelt down beside Sanders in disbelief. Riley's doubt was proven wrong when he saw the hatch that Sanders was pointing out.

'What if – And this is just a theory… What if the sisters knew there was going to be an explosion in their basement? What if they went into the cellar beneath their basement for safety? What if the other two sisters are still alive and down there?' hypothesised Sanders.

Riley contemplated the idea. 'That theory has no evidence. All we've got here is a blocked off hatch.' Riley stood up and looked at the heavy beam that presently blocked the hatch from being accessible. 'Do you think the two of us can get that beam to budge?'

Sanders pondered the possibility. The beam that was blocking the hatch was covered with other heavy-looking debris. One end of the huge beam looked partially lodged into the wooden staircase.

Sanders shook his head. 'Nah. We're going to have to get some people in to budge it.'

'They better start a.s.a.p. because I want to know what's under this basement,' said Riley determinedly. 'I'll stay here and call you when the hatch is clear. In the meantime, you are going to the hospital to interview Miss Matthews.'

The two officers exited the basement, cautiously making their way up the wooden staircase that had somehow remained stable enough to use.

**...**

Sitting back in their dingy hotel room, Piper and Phoebe were no longer in disguise. They had taken the glamour spell off as they were in private. Piper's brunette hair was as long as ever, and she currently wore it down. Meanwhile since the pixie cut of oh-three, Phoebe's brunette hair had been getting longer and darker with each passing year. Despite her hair length, Phoebe had not changed much in appearance since the battle against Zankou. The thoughts of the two sisters were currently focused on coming up with a plan.

'Hopefully Leo will be back from Dad's soon,' said Phoebe.

Piper nodded glumly. 'I just wish we could have gone with to get the Book… Speak to Wyatt and Chris while there…'

Phoebe sighed. 'The police are still keeping an eye on Dad. We don't want to look too conspicuous by all three of us turning up on his doorstep and leaving with a big package.'

Piper closed her eyes and nodded silently. 'You're right… I just… I didn't even get a chance to say hi to Wyatt or Chris at the memorial service.'

Phoebe feigned a smile. 'Piper, after we have figured out a way to save our innocent and vanquish that demon, then we'll focus on figuring out how to unfake our deaths.'

Piper let out a small laugh. '_Un_fake our deaths? You write articles for your advice column on a daily basis, yet you couldn't come up with a better way to say: Reveal to the world that, like Paige, we're not actually dead?'

Phoebe blushed. 'If you haven't noticed, I've been a little too preoccupied with other things over the past month to write my column, starting with the fact that everyone thinks I'm dead. Sending in a column would probably make the term _ghost writing_ quite literal.'

Piper smiled. 'Ghost writing… That's when you write for someone else under that person's name… So if you were sending in work for yourself under your own name – dead or not – ghost writing is not –'

'I know it does not technically work in the joke, but what else could I have called it?' said Phoebe, annoyed that Piper had pointed out the error in her thinking.

Leo – still disguised in his glamour – opened the door. He quickly closed the door behind him and placed a brown parcel on the bed. Phoebe quickly tore into it to reveal the Book of Shadows.

While Phoebe began to search through the Book, Leo asked Piper, 'Could you do me a favour and take this glamour off?'

'Sure,' said Piper.

Piper swept her hand upwards. Silver orbs engulfed Leo. When the orbs disappeared, Leo was back to looking like his usual self.

'Thanks,' said Leo. He turned back to the door and put his hand on the handle to open it.

'What are you doing, Leo?' Piper asked. 'You can't go outside looking like yourself, just as much as we can't go outside looking like ourselves.'

Leo turned back around to face Piper. He was smiling.

'I'm not going outside, Piper,' said Leo. 'I was opening the door to let in some visitors that I went to look for on my way back from your dad's.'

Phoebe stopped leafing through the Book and looked up at Leo, a puzzled expression on her face. Piper wore a matching expression.

'Visitors?' Piper questioned.

Leo nodded. He let the door open to reveal two teenage boys and a woman in her early twenties: Max, Tyler, and Aviva. The expressions of the two young witches and ex-Firestarter mirrored the expressions of the two Halliwell sisters.

Max, Tyler, and Aviva were shocked to see that the Halliwell family friend that had led them back to the hotel for a magic related reason was now Leo. Not only that, but that the two other occupants of the hotel room were the presumed dead Halliwell sisters.

**...**

In the private room at San Francisco Memorial Hospital, Glen was helping Paige to pack the last of her belongings into her bag. Her bandaged arm was now being held up with a sling. After the youngest Charmed One had zipped up her bag with her right hand, she swung it over her right shoulder.

Glen looked at Paige nostalgically. 'You know, this reminds me of that one time in high school, when you were climbing out of the window to ditch class with me, and you…'

Paige smirked. 'I lost balance and fell out the window, breaking my arm in the process.' Paige's smile faded as she said, 'Glen, you should go. Jessica is probably worried about you.'

Glen shrugged. 'She'll understand. It's not everyday that a guy goes to his best friend's funeral, just to be visiting that exact same best friend in hospital the very next day.'

Paige looked away from Glen sheepishly. 'Thanks for not hating me for not telling you before yesterday…'

Glen looked surprised at the partial apology. 'Paige, I could never hate you. You and your sisters had your reasons. Besides you told me everything yesterday at the funeral, despite not being yourself.' If it was not serious before, Glen's expression became serious as he asked, 'So where are you going to go now?'

Paige shrugged. 'To see my sisters. I have a lot to do: catch up on their plan; save an innocent; and vanquish a demon.'

'Are your sisters going to rejoin the living world in the same sense as you after all of this?' Glen asked.

Paige let out a sigh. 'That's their decision to make, and I hope they do decide to go for it, because I don't fancy running all their errands for them in the future.'

Glen laughed. He gave Paige a hug and wished her good luck. The two said goodbye and Glen left the hospital room. Paige made one last check around the hospital room in case she had left anything behind.

Despite her sisters telling her not to go back to the hotel room while they were still presumed dead by the public, Paige was determined to be a part of the demonic fight. Therefore she was going to orb straight into the hotel room.

Before she even had a chance to begin orbing, a sandy haired police officer entered the hospital room. Paige instantly recognised him as the police officer that had found her in the basement. Paige did not know his name, but she was sure she was about to find out.

'Inspector David Sanders,' the officer said, introducing himself, as he held out his right hand for Paige to shake.

Paige shook his hand. 'I guess I don't need to introduce myself.'

Sanders smiled. 'Of course not, Miss Matthews. I always remember a face, especially when that face is of someone that's been presumed dead for the past five weeks.'

Paige frowned. 'Are you trying to accuse me of something, Inspector?'

'Not at all,' said Sanders. 'I am not allowed to make any assumptions at the moment. You could be innocent, or you could be guilty.'

'Okay, well, thanks for finding me in the basement… but I have somewhere to be, so… I'll be going now,' said Paige, trying to hedge past the policeman. Now that he was here, all Paige wanted to do was leave and find an empty corridor to orb out from.

Sanders manoeuvred himself so as he was blocking the door. As that door – other than a window that Paige did not intend to try and climb through with one working arm and a policeman watching her – was Paige's only non-magical means of exit, Paige could not leave.

'You have somewhere to be? Where's that?' Sanders asked curiously. 'Not to sound harsh, but your sisters are suspected dead, your brother-in-law is missing, and according to case files, other than your sisters, you have no other living blood relatives.'

'Number one: You forget about my two awesome nephews,' Paige said irritably. 'And number two: Just because he's not my father, that does not mean that Victor Bennett does not treat me like a member of the family.'

'So you are going to Mr. Bennett's home?' asked Sanders.

Paige rubbed her forehead in aggravation. She just wanted to get straight to that hotel room.

'Where else do I have to go? My house is currently inaccessible, because your lot think it is still a crime scene,' Paige complained.

'If it wasn't still a crime scene, we would never have found you there,' countered Sanders. 'I need you to tell me something, Miss Matthews. You may be the only person that knows the answer, and if your sisters are still alive, we may be able to find them. What happened at 1329 Prescott Street on May 22nd?'

Paige sighed, giving herself a little more time to come up with a convincing lie. Realising that she better not say anything until she had gone over a cover story with her sisters, Paige said, 'I can't remember…'

Sanders stared at Paige, looking for any sign of deception. 'Where have you been for the last month?'

Paige gulped. 'It's all a little hazy right now…'

Furrowing his brow, Sanders tried another question. 'How did you come to be in the basement yesterday, trapped under that fallen beam? In addition to that, do you have any idea why the living room curtains caught fire yesterday?'

Smiling weakly, Paige said, 'My short term memory hasn't come back yet. Yesterday was just so traumatic that all I remember is waking up in the hospital.'

The inspector shook his head. He had evidently not believed one of Paige's lies. There were a few moments of silence while he jotted something down in his notepad. Putting the notepad in his pocket, Sanders looked at Paige gravely.

'What's beneath the basement?' Sanders suddenly asked. This question received a puzzled look from Paige. 'Miss Matthews, we found the hatch in the basement floor. What's beneath it?'

'Hatch? What hatch?' asked Paige. This was the first honest reply she had given. She knew the answer to what was below the basement, but the fact that there was a hatch that led from the basement down into the cavern that she could not orb into was news to her.

'Miss Matthews, I know you are hiding something. My colleagues are working on a way to unblock that hatch and as soon as we do, we will go down there,' said Sanders coldly. 'You telling me these things could make the difference between us finding your sisters alive and us finding your sisters… dead.'

Sanders stepped away from the doorway as he finished his dialogue. Refusing to add anything to what had already been said, Paige headed out of the hospital room, knowing that she and her sisters now had a tighter deadline to work against for vanquishing the demon. If the police accessed the hatch and encountered Xalinth, they were not going to survive the meeting.

**...**

Max, Tyler, and Aviva sat on the sofa in the hotel room. The three of them were still trying to grasp the concept that Piper, Phoebe, and Leo – sat on the bed opposite – were facing them, alive and well.

'I heard soon after the memorial service yesterday that the cops had found Paige alive, so… that's when I sort of expected that the three of you might be lurking around still… but… I just never expected that I had been speaking to you at the funeral… or that you would lead me here to speak to you…' Tyler rambled.

The Book of Shadows was open to a random page on Phoebe's lap. She had not found the page on Xalinth yet, but had stopped looking through the Book in order to look up and listen to Tyler.

Phoebe nodded in response to the ex-Firestarter's words. 'I agree with you on that last part. I have no idea why Leo decided to bring you three here.'

Leo sat forward a little, as he began his explanation. 'I brought them here, because the three of them can help.'

'No offense, but according to Paige, this demon is trying to steal the Nexus,' said Piper. 'He may be just as bad as Zankou, but we beat Zankou without any extra help. We can beat this guy too.'

Leo shook his head, looking at his wife with care. 'Piper… The three of you were lucky to survive. Whatever method you used last time won't work this time. Xalinth will be prepared. You need back up to get through this.'

Piper frowned. 'No! We are not putting their lives on the line! This is too dangerous!'

'I agree with Piper. They're only kids,' Phoebe added.

'I think they might have something to say about that,' said Leo.

Piper, Phoebe, and Leo looked over at the two witches and ex-Firestarter. The three former innocents had been listening intently to the conversation between the two Charmed Ones and the ex –whitelighter.

'We actually do,' said Aviva, scowling at Piper and Phoebe's remarks. 'Firstly, I am not a kid! Phoebe, I am practically the age you were when I met you! Plus I've got an amazing offensive power, which – before you say anything – I can control now.'

Tyler looked round at Aviva curiously. 'What power's that?'

'Pyrokinesis,' Aviva said a little smugly.

Tyler rolled his eyes.

'I thought that was only a power that Kali gave you,' Piper pointed out.

'So did I, until I developed the power by myself a few months later,' Aviva explained. 'I guess all that Kali did was speed up my power development in her plan to escape her prison and kill you two and Prue. When you vanquished her, the pyrokinetic powers went away, because I was not ready for them yet.' Piper and Phoebe nodded to show that they thought Aviva's rationalisation could be right. Aviva continued with: 'It's an amazing offensive power for battling demons. I can back you two and Paige up in this fight.'

'Okay, maybe you can help us, Aviva…' mumbled Phoebe. 'Tyler and Max can't though. They are too young.'

'I may only be fourteen, but I've always had almost perfect control over my psychokinesis. I can help you,' Max said determinedly. 'Your sister helped me out of a tough situation seven years ago. It's about time that I returned the favour.'

Piper frowned. 'Fine, but you and Aviva won't be going up against Xalinth. That's the job of Phoebe, Paige, and I.'

'Hey! What about me? If a fourteen year old can take part, then so can I! I'm fifteen! I'm older than him! I can do this!' Tyler complained.

Piper turned to Tyler. 'Your powers are bound, remember? You are so not facing any demons without any powers.'

Huffily, Tyler said, 'Well, maybe I want my powers back. Maybe I want them unbound.'

'Do you actually want them unbound or are you just saying that because you feel left out?' Piper asked.

Tyler scowled at being treated like an indecisive little kid. 'My life has stabilised since that time when I met you. I am ready to get my powers back.'

'That doesn't mean you'll be able to control them,' Piper countered. 'You couldn't exactly control them last time, and if we unbind them now, there won't be enough time before the battle for you to learn to control them.'

'Leo obviously trusts that I can do this, or he would not have brought me here,' Tyler pointed out.

Leo blushed a little at being thrown into the centre of the argument. However he quickly regained his composure and nodded encouragingly in support of Tyler.

'I think Tyler's ready,' Leo said.

'And your power is?' Aviva pried.

Tyler shrugged nonchalantly. 'I'm not a witch like you lot. I'm a Firestarter. The power's in the name. It's a whole lot better than some silly power like pyrokinesis.' Tyler finished his sentence with a smug smile.

Aviva rolled her eyes. 'Yeah right. We'll see about that, kid.'

While the discussion revolving around Tyler had been taking place, Phoebe had begun to turn the pages of the Book of Shadows again in search of the Xalinth entry. Phoebe suddenly smiled as she found the page she had been looking for. However, as her eyes skimmed down the page, her smile faded.

Nonetheless, Phoebe's changes in expression went unnoticed by Piper, Leo, and their three volunteers. Piper had started jotting down a list of ingredients that were components of most potions. Putting the finishing touches to the list, Piper looked up and handed it to Aviva.

'This list should cover everything we need for potions. You can get it all from Chinatown. Oh, and if you could pick up a pot to cook it all in, that would be great,' said Piper. 'Take Tyler and Max with you. Phoebe, Leo, and I can't come with you without using another glamour spell. That time will be better spent by us staying here and going over a plan.'

Aviva stared at the list for a split second before looking back over at Piper. 'I want to help with the plan. Tyler and Max can go and get the ingredients without me.'

Leo shook his head. He was on the same wavelength as Piper when it came to her reasons.

'Chinatown isn't exactly a place for minors. You're the only one out of you three who's over twenty one,' said Leo.

'Then why do Tyler and I have to go?' Max asked. 'We could stay here and help with the plan.'

Tyler nodded encouragingly in support of Max's question.

'So as you can equally share out the weight of carrying everything back here,' Leo explained.

After a couple more futile protests from the three former innocents, Aviva, Max, and Tyler left the hotel room. Phoebe thought that now was an appropriate time to show her sister and brother-in-law the contents of the page on Xalinth. A hand drawn picture, next to the handwritten entry, was an accurate depiction of the upper-level demon – not that Piper, Phoebe, or Leo could tell as they had not yet met him. The entry read as follows:

'_A demonic Seer that has risen above other demons that possess the same gift, Xalinth has long been an upper-level demon. His power of advanced premonition is accompanied by a heightened power of telepathy. Other than the above information, little is known of Xalinth's conquests, exploits, or choice of alliance. Xalinth is a demon that only lets a chosen few in on his plans whenever he requires assistance. Therefore his secrecy makes him a lesser seen or heard of demon – and therefore not a threat unless you stumble into his plans_.'

When the three of them had finished reading, Leo said, 'Looks like he isn't as bad as Zankou or the Source, but…'

Piper automatically finished the sentence for Leo, '…But he is definitely more powerful than the average demon _and_ he does currently have the location advantage considering he wants the Nexus. Not only that, but Will was lucky to escape the first time around. No wonder Xalinth sent demons after him.'

'If he wants the Nexus, we'll give him it,' said Phoebe. 'Just like with Zankou.'

'Using the same method that you used to defeat Zankou won't work… As I said before, Xalinth will be prepared. Even if you were to try the same method, the circumstances aren't the same as last time. Paige said that he is holding her charge – your innocent – prisoner. Even if you let Xalinth take control over the Nexus, astral in, and say the spell… There would be no way of saving the boy…' Leo put in plain words.

'With Xalinth expecting us, a surprise attack won't be simple either,' said Piper. 'Do we ambush the manor in an attempt to regain the location advantage, or..?' Piper trailed off, unsure of what other choices they had.

'Or do we attempt to get that boy out of there..?' Phoebe suggested. 'As long as we do that before Xalinth gets possession of the Nexus, it could work, and we could face Xalinth when we know the boy is safe.'

'Maybe your plan should include the fact that it's not just the three of you this time,' Leo pointed out. 'Aviva, Max, and Tyler are all capable of facing lesser demons. They can cause a distraction in the manor and possibly try to get your innocent to safety. Meanwhile the three of you can focus on a way to vanquish Xalinth; preferably before he succeeds at taking over the Nexus.'

**...**

The cavern below the basement of Halliwell manor currently housed only two occupants, Repugnus and Will. So much dust currently engulfed the atmosphere. This was caused by the rubble falling from the ceiling at each fireball blast. Therefore the only thing visible in amongst the dusty haze was each fireball that Repugnus incessantly threw towards the ceiling. The lack of visibility meant that Repugnus – and Xalinth when he was there earlier – could not see the hatch in the ceiling.

There was suddenly a cracking type sound as a long fissure appeared in the ceiling. The dust cloud around that particular area cleared, beaten down by the power emanating from the fissure.

Repugnus' eye's widened in a mixture of surprise and delight. 'I – I did it? Yes! I did it! _I_, Repugnus, succeeded in gaining access to the Nexus!'

From his position in the cavern, Will heard all of this. He rolled his eyes, which was a little pointless considering he was blindfolded and Repugnus was not even looking in his direction.

'You may have done it, but you're not the one who's going to be taking the Nexus in, are you? So you won't get any credit, or anything of that sort,' Will pointed out derisively.

Repugnus grimaced. 'It's not like he's here now…'

'Exactly, so really and truly, you could steal it for yourself,' Will encouraged the demon.

Repugnus grinned wickedly as he considered the idea. 'With the power of the Nexus inside me, Xalinth will be unable to stop me.'

Will nodded. 'Go ahead.'

Repugnus took a deep breath, preparing himself to say the spell that would release the Nexus. However, before Repugnus could get a word out of his mouth, he began to scream, bursting into flames. Simultaneously Xalinth flamed into the cavern. He scowled angrily at Will.

'You dastardly witch! You thought that forcing me to vanquish another of my minions would help the Charmed Ones? Well, you're wrong! I was out recruiting more minions!' yelled Xalinth.

Ten demons shimmered in around Xalinth. One of the demons stepped forward.

'Where is this?' the demon asked. 'This isn't the Underworld.'

Xalinth turned to the demon that had spoken. 'This is below the surface world, but not the Underworld. This is above the Underworld, but not above ground. This is in between the two… We're underground.'

'What is the mission you sent us here to do?' the demon asked.

'Go into the manor and blend in as mortal cops. When the Charmed Ones show up, get close enough to them to shimmer them down here,' instructed Xalinth.

'The Charmed Ones? Aren't they dead?' asked the demon.

Xalinth sneered. 'I met one of them and she's definitely alive. I believe her sisters are too.'

The demon frowned. 'Wait, but why would the Charmed Ones come bursting through the door of their house when there are mortals who think they are dead present?'

'Only the Charmed Ones know the answer to that,' Xalinth said. 'I saw it happen with my premonition power when I came face to face with the youngest Charmed One… Unfortunately it was all that I saw… Now go! Do what I have asked of you!'

The first demon bowed before shimmering out. The other nine demons followed the first demon's action.

**...**

The plan discussion in the hotel room was drawing to a close. However it was cut short by the formation of blue and white orbs around an open area of carpet in the hotel room. The orbs disappeared to reveal Paige. She smiled, trying to ignore the annoyed glare she was receiving from her eldest sister, the Piper's-gonna-kill-ya look she was getting from the middle sister, and the concerned look she was getting from her brother-in-law. Paige threw her bag onto the floor as she sat on the empty sofa to face the mixture of expressions.

'Paige, what are you doing here?' Leo asked. 'I thought we were going to meet you near Prescott Street when we had a plan prepared.'

Paige scoffed. 'Yeah, right. This is my charge. I am not going to sit on the sidelines and let you three do all the planning.'

'Paige…' said Piper, trying not to lose it. 'What part of 'it's not safe for you to be seen coming to this hotel' did you not understand?'

Paige shrugged casually. 'I kept to that.'

Piper raised an eyebrow. 'Er, no you didn't, Paige.'

'Er, yes I did, Piper,' said Paige. 'No one saw me come here. Even if someone happened to see me orb – which is impossible, because I made sure the coast was clear, like I always do – it would be impossible for them to know where I was orbing to.'

Piper muttered something under her breath, a little frustrated with her youngest sister's lack of worry for this sort of thing.

'So… Have I missed much?' Paige asked.

Phoebe handed Paige the Book of Shadows which was still open to the entry on Xalinth. Paige skim-read it in silence.

'We haven't figured out a solid plan yet, but we've got the basics sorted,' Phoebe started to say. 'He'll be expecting us to orb into that area below the basement…'

Paige looked up from the Book, shaking her head. 'Did I forget to mention that it's protected from orbing?'

Piper sighed. 'Then how exactly do we access it? We haven't exactly ever needed to make a teleportation potion before. I wouldn't even know how to specify the teleportation potion's destination. Then again, there's always a _Create A Door_ spell in the Book. Maybe we could use that on the floor…'

Paige's eyes suddenly widened as she remembered something Sanders had mentioned. 'We already have a way in. There's a hatch in the basement floor.'

Piper shook her head. 'I think we'd know if such a thing existed, Paige. We have lived there for longer than you.'

'No. The hatch… It's recent,' Paige continued.

Phoebe said sarcastically, 'Oh sure. The demons decided to do a small renovation on the manor for us.'

Paige glowered at her sisters for their inability to listen. 'Not renovated by demons, Phoebe, but by a witch. Will! My charge. Our innocent. His power. He can create doors. He told me he faced Xalinth down there with his father. He must have created a hatch in the basement floor with his power, but forgotten to remove it in his rush to get out.'

'Okay… So that's access answered… Now how long do we leave it before we attack?' Piper asked.

'Well, we have to wait until we have all the necessary potions prepared,' Phoebe began.

Piper grimaced. 'That could take a while.'

'We should have time,' said Leo encouragingly. 'Xalinth won't hurt Will. The boy's the one factor that's stopping you from using the same method you used on Zankou, so Xalinth needs him alive.'

'Er… Will may not be the only person we have to worry about…' Paige said cautiously, knowing that what she was about to reveal was not going to help them one bit. 'The cops are currently working overtime in the basement to get access to that hatch in the floor…'

Piper closed her eyes in exasperation. 'Okay. Slight change of plan then…'

'We could always glamour…' Phoebe suggested.

Piper shook her head. 'I don't want to hide anymore.' Piper opened her eyes. 'Besides what is a better distraction for the demons than us outing ourselves to the cops?'

'Are you crazy?' Phoebe asked.

There was a knock on the door of the hotel room which interrupted the train of thought. Leo stood up and went over to the door, looking out through the peep hole before opening it.

'Er… Are we expecting visitors?' Paige asked her sisters quietly, noticing that none of them were worried about glamouring back into their disguises.

'Oh, did we forget to mention we have a few people helping us? They're all prior magical innocents,' Phoebe asked.

'Uh… yeah!' Paige said, annoyed that she was only finding this out as the three figures walked into the room.

Aviva was carrying four bulky plastic bags; similarly Max was carrying four bulky plastic bags; and finally Tyler was carrying a stack of pots that varied in size.

'Hey Paige!' said Tyler as he placed the pots down. He grimaced as he saw her broken arm. 'Ow. I bet you wish you still had a whitelighter as a brother-in-law.'

Paige smiled. 'Nah. It's okay. It will mend. How's the foster family, Tyler?'

'They're great,' said Tyler, smiling.

Paige turned to Aviva and Max. Paige was embarrassed that she did not recognise these two former innocents, but she did not want to admit it, so she said: 'And you too… I haven't seen you in so long… I, er–'

Phoebe almost laughed. 'Paige, you don't have to say that. You don't recognise them, because you have never met them.'

Paige blushed. 'That would make sense. Hi guys, I'm Paige.'

**...**

Max had used his psychokinetic abilities to disable the smoke detector in the hotel room. The pots were distributed along a table. Each pot had different contents bubbling away inside. With the absence of a hob in the hotel room, Aviva was using her pyrokinesis to keep the pots heated. Piper was continually making her way through the ingredients that had been bought – chopping them, dicing them, mashing them up, or slicing them – and adding them to the pot that required them.

While Piper and Aviva worked on the potions, the other two Charmed Ones, their ex-whitelighter, and the remaining two former innocents worked on the rest of the plan. Phoebe was working with Max to come up with spells, and Paige was working with Tyler and Leo on tactics.

The battle was looming, yet Piper, Phoebe, and Leo had not yet come across the chance to discuss the fates of their individual identities after the battle was over.

'Tyler!' Piper called.

Tyler looked over at Piper. 'Yeah?'

'Do you still want your powers back?' Piper asked, her question accompanied by a small smile.

The anti-binding potion was ready. Piper used a spoon to scoop the potion out of its pot into a small mug. Tyler grinned. Almost tripping over Paige and Leo in his enthusiasm to get to the mug, Tyler ran over to the table that Piper was standing at.

Steam was rising from the mug. Piper had only put a very tiny amount into the mug, but much effervescence was still being produced by the potion. Taking a very brief second to consider the option of not drinking it, Tyler took a sip. He closed his eyes as he swallowed the potion.

'Do you feel any different?' Piper asked.

Without opening his eyes, Tyler put his hands to his temples and focused on an image in his mind. Suddenly the fire that was keeping the pot that contained the anti-binding potion heated went out.

'Hey!' Aviva yelled at Tyler.

Tyler smirked, taking his hands away from his temples, and opening his eyes. 'I told you my powers were better than yours.'

Aviva rolled her eyes. 'We'll see about that when we're faced with the real test of battling demons.'

Piper interrupted the trading of comments with a remark of her own: 'Stop yammering and help me bottle the rest of the potions. They're all done and we're going to need them.'

Aviva and Tyler sighed. They picked up some of the glass vials that Aviva had managed to buy while in Chinatown, and began to fill each with specific potions. While they were doing that, Piper walked over to Paige and Leo.

'I am really not looking forward to Wyatt and Chris' teenage years,' said Piper. 'It's exhausting enough trying to keep our pyromaniacs over there from squabbling. It's going to be a lot worse with two teenage whitelighter-witches.'

'I'm _not_ a teenager!' Aviva yelled without turning around from the table.

Piper rolled her eyes and said more quietly so as only her youngest sister and husband could hear: 'Then quit acting like one.' Piper sat down next to Leo, putting her head on his shoulder. 'Are we ready to go?'

'We as in only you, Phoebe, Paige, Max, Aviva, and Tyler?' asked Leo. 'Or is there a chance that I may be included in that?'

Piper sighed. 'Honey, you know it's not safe… You're mortal…' Sitting up to include Paige in the discussion, Piper added, 'So what's the plan we've finalised on?'

**...**

Riley and Sanders walked through the front doors of Halliwell manor. As they walked through the manor, they noticed men in police uniform stationed around the main floor.

Riley frowned. 'I didn't ask for that much backup. We only required people for moving the beam in the basement.'

Sanders shrugged. 'Maybe the chief overcompensated for the lack of men we've had here over the past month.'

'Maybe,' mumbled Riley. 'Except I don't recognise any of these guys…'

Once again Sanders shrugged. 'Anyway as I was saying before: Miss Matthews dodged every single one of my questions. I think her sisters are still alive and she knows it. She's hiding something.'

'You don't think she's behind it, do you?' asked a surprised Riley. After all, it was Sanders that had suggested a hypothesis that favoured the three sisters as innocent people earlier that day.

'I don't know what to think,' replied Sanders grimly.

The detective and the inspector had reached the basement door. It was open, but a yellow police crime scene tape was fixed across the entrance from the left side to the right side of the door frame. The duo ducked beneath the tape and stood at the top of the wooden staircase to look down at the activity in the basement below.

Four men in hard hats, gloves, goggles and other protective gear were assessing how to break the beam apart. The men were using markers to indicate where on the beam to cut. Two saws and a few other tools were placed on the bottom steps of the basement staircase, ready to be used when the men were ready to start work on the beam.

'How long do you think this is going to take?' Riley called down to the four men.

All four men looked up at the two police officers. One of the men answered, 'Another couple of hours. We're going to need a harness in here too to hoist this beam up once we've broken it into two or three pieces.'

Riley let out a frustrated sigh. 'This is taking far too long.'

The two police officers left the basement, finding their way out of the manor.

**...**

In the cavern below the basement, Xalinth had begun to chant the incantation that would release the Nexus, giving him the power that he desired. Will struggled against the chains that kept him connected to the wall. He moved his head closer to his shoulder in an attempt to brush the blindfold away from his eyes so as he could at least use his power to help escape. His efforts at any form of freedom were unsuccessful.

**...**

The front door of the manor burst open. Piper, Phoebe, and Paige stood on the porch.

'Look who's just got home,' Piper said with a smirk.

The ten demonic policemen, all of whom had stationed themselves in that area of the house, began to throw fireballs in the direction of the three sisters.

'Woah!' Piper shouted, holding her hands out in front of her. The ten fireballs stopped mid-air. Piper grinned. 'I wonder who's going to be my first demon vanquish? I mean, it has been a while… Who to pick? Who to pick?'

Paige rolled her eyes. 'Since you won't make your mind up…' Paige swept both her hands outwards and the fireballs began to return to the demon that had sent each one. Only after this action did she remember that she had forgotten to say: 'Fireballs!'

Only one of the demons was too slow to react. He was engulfed in flames as his own fireball vanquished him. The other nine shimmered out of the way. However, only eight shimmered back in. The ninth had presumably shimmered down to the cavern to report to Xalinth that the Charmed Ones were in the manor. Three of the demons shimmered in around Piper; two shimmered in around Phoebe; and three shimmered in around Paige.

Piper flicked her wrists and one of the demons around her burst into flames. 'I told them I would be able to control it this time!' she said, smirking. She followed this up by flicking her wrists twice more, vanquishing the following two demons in a burst of flames.

The two demons were approaching Phoebe side by side. Phoebe did not react. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. The demons floated up into the air before being thrown across the room. Phoebe opened her eyes and smiled.

The three remaining demons were surrounding Paige. She did not seem fazed at all. 'What are you going to do? Orb me into a wall?' one of the demons asked mockingly. His comment was accompanied by scornful laughs from the other two demons. Paige shook her head. Placing both arms out in front of her, she shot flames from her hands.

More demons, possibly reinforcement, shimmered in – including the two that Phoebe had thrown across the room. They approached the Charmed Ones.

One of the demons was scowling. 'You've been away for a while and now you've come back with different powers? You still won't be able to defeat Xalinth. Now come with us, and we can take you straight to him.'

Piper, Phoebe, and Paige exchanged confident expressions before turning back to the demons.

'Nah. I think we'll stay up here. Vanquishing you lot seems like more fun,' said Piper assertively.

'Then we'll have to make you go down there by force,' said the demon that had spoken initially.

'You can try,' said Phoebe. 'I don't think it will work.'

Turning to Paige, Piper said, 'I bet I can fry more demons than you.'

Paige laughed. 'Deal. If you actually had an income, I probably would bet twenty bucks.'

Piper frowned irritably. 'I may be younger than you, but I do get pocket money!'

Paige rolled her eyes. 'You are definitely the little brother that I am glad I never had.'

'Av, Ty! Focus!' Phoebe said sincerely.

The demons were rightfully puzzled by this banter going on between the Charmed Ones, but decided to ignore it and attack. The supposed Charmed Ones were ready to continue the fight with the demons on this floor…

**...**

Meanwhile the four workmen were working alone in the basement. They were the only ones there. No one noticed the tape fall off the basement entrance or the multiple footsteps sounding on the wooden steps.

'Oh my gosh, Phoebe. Did you have to wear such noisy high heels when we're trying to sneak around?' hissed an invisible Piper.

'Sorry,' an invisible Phoebe whispered quietly.

'Let's just hope the demons don't figure out that the three people they're fighting in the hallway aren't us,' whispered an invisible Paige.

The four workmen suddenly froze in their positions due to the unseen use of an invisible Piper's power.

'Paige,' invisible Piper said as a cue for invisible Paige to take her turn.

'Okay, but I keep telling you that orbing multiple people away is going to be difficult with only one arm!' invisible Paige said grumpily. Noisy footsteps were heard as she ran down the stairs. The sound of someone orbing could be heard as the four men disappeared, even though the blue and white orbs themselves were not visible. The jingling sound occurred again as the invisible Paige returned alone. 'I'm back. Your turn again, Piper.'

With another flick of her invisible wrists, the unseen eldest Charmed One blew up the beam that had been blocking the hatch. The sound of footsteps running down the basement staircase was audible as the invisible occupants of the basement made their way towards the hatch.

**...**

Xalinth stood in the middle of the cavern with his eyes closed. A demon shimmered in next to him.

'Why aren't they here yet?' Xalinth asked, his voice deeper than it had been previously. The power of the Nexus had affected him. 'You told me that they had arrived at the manor, so why aren't they down here yet?'

'They aren't being cooperative,' said the demon.

'So force them,' said Xalinth angrily. 'I chose your clan of demons for a reason. You have a higher resistance than most normal demons to the abilities that make the Charmed Ones strong adversaries: Telekinesis and the power to freeze.'

The demon sighed helplessly. 'Yes, but… They seem to have some surprises up their sleeves… Powers that they've never possessed before…'

Xalinth finally opened his eyes at this revelation. He no longer had any pupils. His eyes were engulfed in the darkness that came with the possession of the Nexus.

Unnoticed by Xalinth and the demon, the hatch opened. Fortunately for the invisible intruders, there was a poorly crafted set of stone steps leading down from the ceiling that they could use.

'You have the power over the Nexus. You have the power to defeat them,' said the demon. 'Why not go up there and attack them?'

Xalinth scowled. 'I have the best advantages down here! Down here, they can't orb out to safety. Down here, they can't do anything that could risk injuring their innocent! Don't you dare act as if I do not know why I am doing the things I am doing! I always have my reasons.'

'I do apologise,' said the demon, bowing timidly.

Will had been listening to all of this from his position by the wall. Although he could not see anything, he had a good idea of what was going on thanks to the consistent stream of demons that kept shimmering in to report the upstairs events to Xalinth.

Will was shocked when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It could not possibly be Xalinth or the demon minion he was speaking to, because they were still speaking and their voices appeared to be coming from across the cavern.

'Will,' a voice said very quietly – Paige's voice. 'Don't say a word or move a muscle. We're here to help.'

Will nodded. Someone removed the blindfold from his face, but when he looked around all he saw was the blindfold fall to the floor. He could not see Paige or anyone else around him, yet he was sure he had heard her voice moments earlier. The only individuals he could see in the cavern were the distant figures of the two conversing demons.

There was a small explosion near his left wrist and almost immediately after there was a small explosion near his right wrist. Will's arms fell forward as the now-broken chains no longer held his arms back.

Will stood up a little puzzled as to what was going on. He felt a hand grab his hand. At the point of contact, Will noticed his own arm fading away. After a couple of seconds, he realised that he was now invisible too.

'Follow me,' said the voice of an invisible male – Leo. 'The girls will deal with Xalinth.'

The other demon had shimmered out moments before. Therefore, as the hatch slammed shut due to Will and Leo making their exit, Xalinth heard it. His eyes darted in that direction. Quickly connecting the dots as to who had just opened and shut the hatch that he had never noticed before this instant, Xalinth's eyes darted over to the wall where the broken chains lay. Since the invisible Charmed Ones stood between the wall with the chains and Xalinth, they were able to look directly at the demon.

'Uh… Piper, Paige…' invisible Phoebe suddenly whispered to her invisible sisters, noticing the demon's demeanour. 'I think we're too late to stop Xalinth from taking over the Nexus…'

'Reveal yourselves! I know you're there!' Xalinth shouted, the deepened voice echoing throughout the cavern. He was still staring at the wall with the chains. 'You may be hidden, but I can see you!'

Phoebe muttered a spell under her breath, taking the invisibility spell off her and her sisters. They were standing in a line, holding each others' hands tightly. Paige was on the far left, Piper was in the middle, and Phoebe was on the far right.

'There's no way we can use the Power of Three spell that we prepared while he's possessed by the Nexus,' muttered Phoebe.

Piper let out a sigh. 'Great,' she whispered sarcastically. 'Well, we know the spell that will vanquish him, even if it looks like the spell does not destroy the Nexus like the Elders thought…' Piper strengthened her grip on Phoebe's left hand and Paige's right hand. 'No astral projections for us this time… We can't get out of this one…'

Paige gulped. 'How ironic. I am going to die right after coming back from the dead.'

Phoebe furrowed her brow. 'Well, at least you had a chance to come back from the dead. Piper and I are going to remain dead. No brief reappearance in the land of the living for us.'

The Charmed Ones accepted their fate and began to chant the spell together: '_From ancient time this power ca_–'

Xalinth swept his hands forward, blasting a shadow-like force towards the three sisters. The three sisters let go of one another's hands as they flew across the cavern in different directions, causing a halt in their spell casting. Piper flew backwards, hitting the wall with the chains; Phoebe flew to the side into the poorly crafted stone steps; and Paige flew to the side into another wall of the cavern.

Piper scrambled to her feet, untangling herself from the chains that she had fallen into. Limping due to an injured left ankle, Piper began to approach Xalinth. She flicked her wrists, but the blast of her power did little to impact Xalinth.

As she continued to limp towards him, Piper began to say, '_From ancient time this power came, for all to–_'

The powerful demon swept his arms upwards, telekinetically sending Piper up into the air. Holding his hand out, Xalinth managed to leave the eldest Charmed One suspended in mid-air, telekinetically.

'_For all to have but none to reign_,' Phoebe continued, as she began to stagger in the direction of Xalinth. Blood was running down her face due to a deep cut on her forehead. However she did not care. With what they were about to do, injuries did not matter. '_Take it now, show no m–_'

Phoebe was interrupted as she dived out of the way of a shadow-like blast that Xalinth threw her way with the hand that was not focused on keeping Piper suspended in the air.

'_Take it now, show no mercy_,' Paige continued loudly. She had only just stood up from the wall that she had been thrown into. Her broken arm had fallen out of the sling, but she paid no attention to the pain. Her concentration was on continuing the spell. '_For this power ca–_'

Releasing Piper from her telekinetic suspension, Xalinth threw a shadow-like blast at Paige. Forgetting that the cavern was protected by an anti-orbing spell, Paige staid in the path of the blast while she attempted to orb out of the way. As a result, Paige was hit by the blast, pushing her back into the wall again. Both Piper and Paige were knocked out – Piper, from crashing onto the floor from such a height, and Paige, from the impact of hitting the wall again.

Xalinth looked down at Phoebe who was the only Charmed One that was still conscious. 'After all I've heard, I thought there was more of a challenge involved in defeating the Charmed Ones. The three of you must have gone soft in your time off. Yet it is slightly ironic that the last one standing is the psychic Charmed One. Demonic Seer versus clairvoyant witch it is…'

Phoebe scowled, managing to get to her feet. 'They'll survive. We all will. We're going to survive long enough to take you down with us. And for your information, unless you want my baby – not that I have one – you're never going to be the worst Seer I've ever faced.'

Phoebe ran forward, planting a kick against Xalinth, but the demon grabbed her leg and threw her across the cavern.

**...**

As soon as Leo and Will had left the basement, the spell that had been keeping them invisible wore off. There was only one reason this would happen, and Leo realised it straight away. Piper, Phoebe, and Paige had taken the spell off themselves, because Xalinth knew they were in the cavern.

Leo turned to Will. 'Will, you have to tell me. Had Xalinth already absorbed the power of the Nexus?' When Will nodded, Leo's worried expression grew even more worried. 'No… They've only got one option now… And it's not a good one…'

Leo and Will found Max, Tyler, and Aviva – no longer glamoured to look like the Charmed Ones – pacing around in the living room. When they saw Leo and Will, the three of them stopped pacing and turned to face Leo.

'We continued the attack on the demons, but they stopped coming a few minutes ago,' began Max.

'I think they didn't have anymore demons left to send our way,' said Tyler triumphantly.

'Or something happened down there that caused the main guy to call off the onslaught up here,' added Aviva.

Leo sighed. 'I think Xalinth knows Piper, Phoebe, and Paige are down there. He's already taken over the Nexus, which leaves them with only one choice, but I can't let it happen.'

'What choice? What's the choice?' Will asked.

'You've heard the stories, Will,' said Leo. 'The same way they defeated Zankou, except this time they didn't astral project there.'

'Why..? Why didn't they astral project down there?' Will asked.

'They had to help you, that's why,' said Leo gravely.

'We have to go back down there!' Will said determinedly.

'I agree with the new kid,' said Tyler.

'We can't let them sacrifice themselves,' agreed Aviva.

'There's three witches, a Firestarter, and an ex-whitelighter here. Surely there's a way the five of us can help the three of them,' said Max.

Tyler pulled a few potion vials out of his pockets. 'Did they take any potions down there with them?'

Leo shook his head. 'There was no point. None of the potions you made earlier would have been strong enough to vanquish Xalinth, with or without the Nexus on his side.'

Aviva removed as many as ten potion vials from her bag. 'We're in the famous Halliwell manor, aren't we? Is there anything here that could help?'

'If there was, we wouldn't have been put in the situation we were in when up against Zankou,' said Leo, wiping his brow with his hand.

Max emptied his pockets of the potion vials he had on him. 'We've got some dispossession potions… Is it not possible to strengthen them?'

'No,' said Leo. 'If it was, we would have done it last ti–' Leo stopped for a second. 'Hang on, the reason we did not try that last time was because our aim was to destroy the Nexus as well as vanquish Zankou… Follow me to the kitchen and only bring the vials containing dispossession potions.'

'Are you sure there'll be any leftover stuff to use in the kitchen? This place hasn't had permanent residents for over a month,' Tyler pointed out.

'Food may have a sell-by date, but potion ingredients tend to be long lasting,' countered Leo.

Everyone except for Will began to walk towards the kitchen. 'Wait!' said Will. He continued when everyone had stopped to turn and face him. 'What do we do if mortals enter the manor?'

'They won't,' said Aviva. 'Piper, Phoebe, and Paige performed a spell on the house after entering with Leo. The spell stops any mortal from gaining access. They can leave, but not enter.'

'Which is why I am not leaving until I have my wife by my side,' said Leo. 'Now come on! We don't have time to waste!'

**...**

Phoebe got to her feet again. She was not going to give up. She decided to employ a new tactic, a tactic that took her back a few years.

'_I am light, I am one too strong to fight_,' Phoebe began to mutter.

Xalinth would have rolled his eyes if his pupils were visible. Instead he sneered. 'Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe. I may have absorbed the Nexus, but that spell only works on the Woogyman. I'm no Woogyman.'

'_Return to dark where shadows dwell_,' Phoebe continued before responding with: 'Yes, but I did do a psychology degree and one of the things I remember is that hearing something familiar can help bring a person back to consciousness… _You cannot have_…'

'…_this Halliwell_,' murmured Piper as she got to her feet.

Piper and Phoebe were to either side of Xalinth, the demon being in between the two conscious Charmed Ones.

'What does it matter that she's awake? I can defeat you, whether there are one, two, or three of you against me at once,' said Xalinth, unfazed. 'The only reason I haven't done it yet is because I have been assessing how big a threat you are… Something you have failed at abysmally.'

Piper began to incessantly flick her wrists towards Xalinth. Although each individual blast made little to no impact on the demon, the increasing number of blasts managed to make an impact, causing Xalinth to lose his balance. Phoebe took this chance to drop to the ground and swing kick the demon in the ankles.

While Xalinth was temporarily down, Piper and Phoebe ran over to Paige.

'Paige,' Piper whispered.

Paige's eyes fluttered open, a little blearily. Piper and Phoebe helped Paige to her feet. Supporting Paige between the two of them, the three sisters faced Xalinth who eerily levitated onto his feet.

'Xalinth!' Paige managed to say, sweeping her right arm outwards. Despite the anti-orbing spell, the whitelighter-witch's telekinetic orbing still worked in its usual way. In a blur of blue and white orbs, Xalinth went flying into the corner of the cavern.

Supporting one another, the three sisters ran over to the corner where Xalinth lay. Piper, Phoebe, and Paige were ready to begin reciting the same spell as earlier; the spell that would vanquish Xalinth, and seal – not destroy – the Nexus back up, but also kill the three of them. Xalinth stood up and stared at his three adversaries.

All of a sudden, there was a noise as the hatch was opened and Leo came running down the shoddy stone steps and into the cavern. He yelled the word: 'Duck!'

Without hesitation, the three Charmed Ones ducked. Leo threw the potion at Xalinth. The demon lurched forward as smoke erupted from him. The Nexus was leaving him. A waft of smoke made its way back to the fissure in the ceiling, soon sealing itself up. The sisters staggered backwards. Realising what was going on, Piper muttered the words: 'The Power of Three spell. The one to vanquish Xalinth. We can do it now.'

Piper moved in between Phoebe and Paige, taking each of their hands. Xalinth was struggling to get back onto his feet. The act of having the Nexus taken out of him had drained him almost completely.

'_Powerful Seer that likes to work in secret_,' Piper began. Her focus was almost entirely on reciting this spell. She did not notice that Leo was still in the cavern, standing to one side of the sisters.

'_To vanquish you from head to foot_,' continued Phoebe. After being so prepared for this to end so differently, the idea that they were going to survive had added to Phoebe's determination.

'_We call upon the Power of Three_,' continued Paige. The youngest Charmed One was ready to get this vanquish over and done with. Now that she was back in the real world, and knew she was going to survive, she wanted to get her life started up again.

Xalinth was slowly getting to his feet. The sisters noticed this, but did not want to give him any chances by stopping their chanting. They remained where they were and continued. An energy ball formed in the demon's hand. If they moved now, Xalinth would get the chance to recover and attack again before the spell was complete. Vanquishing the demon was more important than saving themselves.

'Finish the spell!' Leo shouted, diving between the sisters and the demon to block the path of the energy ball that Xalinth had released in their direction.

'Leo!' Piper shouted as Leo skidded to the ground, struck down by the energy ball.

Keeping a tight grip on Piper's hands to stop her running over to Leo, Phoebe and Paige concluded the spell: '_Here and now we end thee_!'

Xalinth burst into flames as the effects of the vanquishing spell worked their magic.

Managing to free herself from Phoebe and Paige's grasps, Piper ran – as fast as her injuries would allow – over to Leo's side. The side of Leo's torso was bleeding, exposing a gash caused by the energy ball. Piper knelt down by her husband, hugging him. Leo's eyelids wavered a little before he opened his eyes. Noticing his wife hugging him, Leo returned the hug.

**...**

The three sisters and Leo entered the living room. Aviva, Max, Tyler, and Will all had relieved looks on their faces. Despite the multiple injuries, the Charmed Ones and their ex-whitelighter had survived the battle.

'Xalinth's gone for good?' questioned Will.

Phoebe nodded. 'I wish we could say the same about the Nexus, but that's definitely not going anywhere.'

'The demon may be gone, but are you guys officially back?' Max asked.

Piper, Phoebe, and Paige exchanged questioning looks.

'You may want to decide soon, because the cops have been hammering on the front door for the past half hour or so trying to regain entry,' Aviva added.

Paige sighed. 'Okay. Can the four of you leave via the back door? Try not to let anyone see you. The four of us are staying here.'

'Keep in touch,' said Aviva with a smile.

'Don't die on us again,' added a smirking Tyler.

'I think he means what we're all thinking: Be careful,' said Max.

All that Will could find suitable to say was: 'Thank you.'

With those words, the four of them walked towards the back of the manor, looking for an exit. Now alone in the living room, the Charmed Ones and Leo wondered what they were going to do.

'Are we orbing out, or are we staying put?' Paige asked her sisters.

Phoebe smiled. 'Staying put. Definitely.'

'Then how do we explain this to the cops outside?' Paige asked.

'We're going to improvise,' said Piper, heading for the front door. She began to mutter under her breath the reversal to the anti-entry-for-mortals spell.

The front door suddenly burst open. Riley and Sanders were about to make a comment to one another about the door suddenly opening, but what they saw stunned them. In the front hall of Halliwell manor stood the two presumed dead Halliwell sisters, the recently found third sister, and the missing husband of the eldest Halliwell sister.

Finding his voice, Riley said, 'Mrs. Halliwell… Miss Halliwell… Miss Matthews… Mr. Wyatt… Care to explain what you are doing here?'

'Do we have to have this conversation at the door? I think I could do with a doctor right about now,' Piper said, hoping to give herself, her sisters, and her husband a little longer to go over a story together.

**...**

**_July 8_****_th_****_ 2005_**

Piper walked into the kitchen of Halliwell manor with a few shopping bags. It had been a week since the battle against Xalinth, as well as a week since Piper, Phoebe, and Leo had followed Paige in making a return to their normal living lives. Within the last couple of days, local authorities had deemed the manor structurally safe enough to live in, allowing the sisters and Leo to return to their home.

From the battle, Piper, Phoebe, and Leo had a few wounds that would not take long to heal. Meanwhile, Paige was stuck with a sling and cast for her arm that would take another six weeks. They had no whitelighter to call for and heal them magically, so modern medicine was the only choice available.

Piper placed the shopping bags on the counter and began to empty the contents into the fridge, freezer, or cupboards. Considering the lack of life within the manor over the past months, they had needed to do an entire food restock for the kitchen.

Leo entered the kitchen with a few more shopping bags. He placed them on the kitchen table. Paige also entered the kitchen. Walking to either side of her were Wyatt and Chris. Lastly Phoebe entered the kitchen. Her eyes were glued on the copy of the _Bay Mirror_ that she was holding open in her hands.

The article that she was reading had the headline '_Story Surrounding Sisters' Survival Secret_.' Accompanying the headline was a subheading that read '_The police have revealed to the _Bay Mirror_ the story behind the basement blast_.' The article was relatively low key and had no photo.

'_A week ago, it was revealed that Paige Matthews, 27, was found in the basement of 1329 Prescott Street approximately twenty hours before Piper Halliwell, 31, Phoebe Halliwell, 29, and Leo Wyatt, 31, were found alive, but injured in the manor._

_The Halliwell family have been unavailable for interview, despite Phoebe Halliwell being an employee of this paper. Until today, the police have not been able to release any statements concerning what happened. Today, the _Bay Mirror_ has managed to secure an exclusive statement from the officers in charge of the Halliwell case, Detective Gordon Riley, 38, and Inspector David Sanders, 32._

_In the statement released by the officers, a gas leak occurred within the basement of 1329 Prescott Street on the day of May 22__nd__. 'All we can disclose is that the blast involved a gas leak and a spark. The sisters were able to get to the safety of a shelter beneath the basement, but the debris sealed the hatch shut.'_

_I asked the officers – if this was so, why was Paige Matthews found separately to the other sisters? Sanders reply was: 'From the accounts that the family have given us, we believe that Miss Matthews managed to get out on the afternoon of June 30__th__. However before her sisters could follow, a loose beam fell. Miss Matthews sustained injuries from this loose beam. After being released from hospital, she went to find her brother-in-law for help instead of confiding in the police. Miss Matthews and Mr. Wyatt returned to the manor and attempted to release the Halliwell sisters from the trapped hatch themselves. This act, alone, has been deemed extremely irresponsible and unsafe. The SFPD want to reinforce the suggestion that this sort of thing is best left in the control of authority figures or professionals.'_

_Finally, I said to the officers – Originally, Victor Bennett [56], the father of two of the sisters, was a suspect in this case. Where do you stand on that? Riley replied with: 'We have already made a public apology to Mr. Bennett. All allegations have been dropped. We were only following a lead, and a number of random factors – the deeds and the money from the bank account. All he was ever suspected of was having knowledge of where they were – a fact proved wrong by the outcome of events.'_

_It took over a month for this story to come to a close. However, with the mystery over, a family is reunited and able to return to their normal lives._'

'Ha!' Phoebe laughed out loud as she placed the newspaper on the table. 'Normal. Yeah, right.'

'What's that?' Piper asked, shutting the fridge.

'Just the paper. The demons know we're back, so any hopes of a normal life are gone, right?' Phoebe said, letting out a sigh.

'Doesn't mean I'm not going to try,' Piper said resolutely.

'Well, I guess we knew our vacation away from all of this was never going to last,' Paige said, who was currently sat at the kitchen table.

This statement was followed by a brief pause. Phoebe was the first to break the pause.

'I should really head off to work,' said Phoebe. 'That way I can see if I still have a job.'

Piper looked over at Phoebe and said, 'While you're there, can you kick that reporter's as–' Piper paused, remembering innocent ears were present in the kitchen. '–can you find the reporter that wrote that article about Dad the other week? He got Chris' age wrong.'

Phoebe smiled, trying to hold in a laugh.

'What?' Piper said with embarrassment. 'Chris isn't one. He's eight months old – or at least he was when that article came out.'

'Okay, Piper. I'll do that,' said Phoebe, still trying not to laugh. Phoebe left the kitchen.

Leo pulled a plastic covering that contained a new set of curtains out of one of the bags. Paige smiled when she saw the curtains.

'I can't believe the cops were convinced that we had no idea how the front room curtains caught on fire the other week,' Paige said.

Piper frowned. 'Leo, put the curtains down. We'll get those up later.'

Leo put them down. 'Fair point. We've got a busy day ahead of us.'

Paige furrowed her brow. 'What's happening?'

Piper looked over at Paige. 'Leo and I were going to go to Dad's with Wyatt and Chris to get the deeds to the manor and _P3_ back. Want to come with?'

Paige shook her head. 'Nah. Phoebe's got stuff to do, and you've got stuff to do. That kind of shows me that I need to go and find myself a life to live.' With those words, Paige stood up and left the kitchen.

Leo chuckled. 'Did Paige basically just say that she's got nothing to do, but decide not to come with anyway?'

Piper smiled. 'Yeah. Don't worry. She'll probably keep using that excuse whenever she's asked to do something she doesn't want to do.'

Piper picked up Chris while Leo took Wyatt's hand. The family of four made their way out of the kitchen.

Their lives were back to normal to the extent of living back at the manor, back with Wyatt and Chris, and back to how everything was before the battle against Zankou. However, they had to accept that, like the previous seven years (four for Paige), they were going to have to try and live as normal lives as possible around their magical heritage.

* * *

**Next episode:** When the sisters receive a call for help from a witch that happens to be dating a demon, Phoebe is the expert on the matter.

* * *

**A/N:** Please review this chapter and let me know what you think.


	3. Grey Area

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews for the last two chapters. Here's the next one. This one is a lot more serious and will leave many loose ends, but it wouldn't be the start of a story arc without some loose ends. In case anyone cares, the title of this one is trying to be a pun of 'Bay Area'.

* * *

**Grey Area**

**_August 16_****_th_****_ 2005_**

Paige Matthews orbed onto one of the highest girders of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was relatively windy up there, so her ponytail moved with the breeze. The whitelighter-witch's left arm was now fully healed after six long weeks. In recent days, she had been allowed to take off the cast and sling.

While waiting for the Elders to turn up, Paige looked out onto the horizon of the Bay Area. It was a bright sunny summer afternoon. The water was glistening in the sunlight and the city was alive with movement. Paige shivered a little. Despite the sun, the breeze was chilly at the very top of the bridge.

The youngest Charmed One turned around as she heard the familiar jingling sound that prompted the arrival of blue and white orbs. The blue and white orbs disappeared to reveal two robed Elders that Paige had met a few times before: Sandra and Odin.

'Thank you for agreeing to this meeting, Paige,' said Sandra.

'I only agreed to show up on behalf of my sisters and myself to give you a message: We have never agreed with your policies. We never will. We may still be alive, and if an innocent falls into our path, we will help them. However, don't expect us to ever go running after errands, demonic leads, or anything of that sort for you again,' Paige told them.

Odin did not respond. His only reaction was a seething expression of anger.

Sandra nodded solemnly. 'We foresaw this when it came to light that you had survived but been in hiding for over a month. However there is a lot of dispute over you and your sisters' reasons. We are all trying to help the Greater Good.'

'Our reasons?' Paige said, scowling at Sandra's choice of words. 'You broke off all connection with us during our battle against Zankou! You left us to die!'

Odin interjected at this point to say: 'The three of you managed to escape alive and you didn't need us for that!'

Sandra had an expression of guilt on her face as she said, 'Paige, no one knew how that battle was going to end. We had to leave you and your sisters to figure it all out on your own.'

Paige shook her head, but she decided not to reply. She was about to orb out until Sandra began to speak again.

'How does this affect your whitelighter duties, Paige?' asked Sandra.

Paige looked surprised. 'Sorry? I know I officially took on whitelighter duties last year, but after my little speech about us not working for you Elders anymore, I thought you'd know the answer to that…'

'That was not the question,' snapped Odin. 'How does your lack of communication with us affect your whitelighter duties?'

'Well, just like with innocents, if a charge comes my way, I can't ignore them,' said Paige, accompanying her sentence with a guilty shrug. However much she disliked the Elders, Paige found that her whitelighter duties gave her some direction in life.

'Good,' said Sandra. 'The main reason we wanted this meeting, Paige, was because we had a special charge to assign you.'

'Special?' questioned Paige, raising a quizzical eyebrow. 'This isn't like when you made me look for Sam a couple of years ago, or when I had to help a future whitelighter that turned out to be me last year, is it?'

'No,' said Sandra, smiling. 'Not exactly. Your charge was once a whitelighter – in fact, he was once an Elder – but now he is mortal. We want him to be a whitelighter again. His actions six weeks ago alone prove he is ready to return to this way of life.'

'What do you want me to do?' Paige asked.

'Guide him. It always has been his destiny to be a whitelighter. He needs to be guided,' said Odin. 'That's all that we ask of you.'

'Who is it?' asked Paige. The description of the ex-whitelighter who had formerly been an Elder already sounded familiar and she knew that if it happened to be this person, then all she could say was no. She knew he was happy with his life as it was, he was happy with his family, and he did not need guiding.

The reply came quickly, confirming Paige's fears: 'Leo Wyatt.'

**...**

Leo Wyatt surveyed the state of the basement that he had spent the last six weeks fixing up: All of the wreckage was gone; the beams and the wooden staircase had been strengthened and stabilised; and the wooden hatch in the concrete floor had been bolted down to prevent any unwanted visitors from using that as an access point.

Marvelling at his craftsmanship, Leo smiled. He picked up his toolbox as he stood up. He made his way up the wooden staircase into the kitchen. Leo put the toolbox down as he washed his hands at the kitchen sink.

There was a sudden beeping sound. Leo turned around to see the kitchen timer sitting on the table. On the display of the timer '_00:00_' was flashing on and off as it beeped. He pressed the button that would reset the timer and stop the beeping. However when the beeping decided not to stop, Leo gave up – letting it continue to beep – and looked around at the stove. Assuming that the beeping indicated that something had finished cooking, Leo switched the oven off, picked up some oven gloves, and removed a tray of freshly baked pie from the oven.

Finding a plate and cutting the pie into eight, Leo took a slice for himself. He sat down at the kitchen table and began to eat his slice of home-made pie that he realised was raspberry flavoured.

Piper Halliwell came running into the kitchen shouting, 'Leave it! I'll get it!' She had noticed Leo's presence in the kitchen, but ran straight past him towards the timer. Piper tried to reset the timer to turn the beeping off. When it did not work, Piper flicked her wrists and the timer blew up.

After swallowing a bite of the pie, Leo said a little astounded, 'Piper!'

Piper put on the oven gloves and opened the oven while replying, 'Not now, Leo. I don't have time for a stupid broken kitchen timer.' Piper closed the oven door with a look of puzzlement on her face when she noticed that the oven was empty and switched off. She turned to face Leo as she said, 'Have you seen the..?' She trailed off as she saw the plate of a half eaten slice of raspberry pie in front of Leo. 'Leo!'

Leo blushed guiltily. 'I wasn't supposed to have any of the pie, was I?'

Dumping the oven gloves on the counter and sitting down at the table next to Leo, Piper sighed. 'Yes… No… Well… The pie wasn't for anyone in particular, to be honest… What do you think of it?'

Leo looked at Piper thoughtfully. 'Why do you even have to ask that? You know that your food is always the best.'

Piper shrugged guardedly. 'I don't know… It was kind of a test, I guess…'

'A test?' Leo questioned.

'Well, it's my way of making a decision…' muttered Piper.

Leo raised an eyebrow and said teasingly, 'You cook a pie every time you make a decision? No wonder demons are always turning up here. They want to get free pie out of you.' After a small pause, Leo added more seriously, 'What is it that you are trying to figure out?'

Piper let out a deep sigh. Looking directly at Leo, Piper said, 'I want to start up my own restaurant.'

Leo smiled. 'That's always been your dream. I'd say go for it.'

'That's not the problematic part,' said Piper. 'The difficult decision is that I will have to give up _P3_.'

Leo frowned. 'Do you not want to give it up?'

'I do. I've always wanted a restaurant, not a club. I've always wanted to be a chef. I never got around to it…' said Piper. 'If I don't make that decision now, I never will.'

'Then do it, Piper. If that's what you want, sell the club,' Leo said encouragingly.

Piper shook her head. 'I'm worried about what Phoebe will say.'

Leo furrowed his brow. 'Why? This has nothing to do with her.'

'She technically owns a third of the club,' said Piper. 'The ownership of the club was originally split three ways… Prue, Phoebe, and me… Prue left her third to me in her will…'

'Phoebe will be fine with you wanting to sell the club, Piper,' said Leo. 'Why wouldn't she be?'

The phone began to ring.

'I think I'm just trying to come up with any reason to postpone making the decision,' said Piper. 'It's a big step.'

Piper stood up and picked up the phone. Meanwhile Leo went back to eating his slice of pie.

'Hello?' Piper said into the phone.

'_Hey Piper. It's Paige_,' said the voice on the other end of the line that belonged to Paige.

'Oh hey. How'd the meeting go?' Piper asked. When she saw Leo mouth the words _Who is it?_ Piper said away from the phone's receiver: 'Paige.' Leo nodded.

'_Not good_,' came Paige's reply. '_Do you think you could drive down to the Golden Gate Bridge and pick me up? I shouldn't be too hard to find along there._'

Piper frowned. 'Can't you orb home? I was going to head to _P3_ with Leo this afternoon.'

'_Yeah… Er… I wish I could orb, but…_' There was a brief pause. '_I gave the Elders our message. After that was over, the Elders were going to assign me a charge. I… Uh… I refused to take on the charge… So the Elders temporarily suspended me…_'

'In other words, they clipped your wings. Except they can't take away your powers, because you're inherently a whitelighter,' Piper responded.

Although Leo could not hear Paige's side of the conversation, Piper's side allowed him to realise what was known so far. Leo was fully intrigued by the contents of the conversation now – despite only being able to hear half.

'_Yeah. That's what I thought. Except the Elders decided that they could be even more annoying than usual by temporarily taking away my whitelighter abilities_,' explained Paige. There was an understandable amount of frustration in her voice.

'Ugh,' said Piper. 'What's gotten on their nerve that's made them so angry at you for turning down a charge? I mean, they were lucky that you were still willing to continue whitelighter duties despite our refusal to work alongside them when it comes to Charmed business.'

There was an unusual amount of hesitation before Paige was heard saying: '_Is Leo in the same room as you?_'

Piper's eyes wandered over to Leo, who was staring directly back at her. 'Yes…' Piper replied.

'_Okay. Don't overreact. Leo doesn't need to know about this_,' said Paige.

'You're worrying me now. What is it, Paige?' Piper asked.

'_They want Leo to be a whitelighter again_,' Paige said.

'What?' Piper said immediately.

'_I said don't overreact_,' Paige said. '_They wanted me to be his whitelighter… To guide him… Make him want to be a whitelighter again…_'

'It makes no sense,' said Piper. She wanted to say more, like ask why the Elders would want an ex-Elder to return as a whitelighter after falling from grace. However Piper could not ask this in front of Leo without him cluing onto the exact thing that Paige did not think Leo needed to know.

**...**

Standing on the side of the road, leaning up against the railings on Golden Gate Bridge, Paige said into her phone: 'I know. We can discuss this further later on when Leo's not around. Could you come and give me a lift now, please?'

'_Sure_,' said Piper. '_Except I don't think my car can reach the part of the Golden Gate Bridge that you went to meet the Elders at_.'

Paige smiled. 'Ha ha. Fortunately the Elders were kind enough to orb me to the roadside of the bridge.'

'_I am just going to assume that the Elders made sure no one sure you suddenly appear on the roadside of the bridge_,' Piper added.

Paige shrugged, guessing the assumption had to be correct, before continuing with: 'Odin had the nerve to say 'At least without your whitelighter powers, you and your sisters will be completely cut off from communicating with us, just like you wanted' as his parting words to me.'

'_If only that could be permanently true – the lack of communication with them part, not the loss of your whitelighter abilities part_,' said Piper. '_Give me around fifteen minutes and I'll be there_.'

'Okay. See you then,' Paige said. Paige put the phone back into her bag and watched as car after car sped past her in either direction.

**...**

The headquarters of the _Bay Mirror_ newspaper was brimming with busy reporters, buzzing computers, and humming printers. An assistant with a pile of unopened envelopes walked through the bustle of busy staff towards the office that belonged to _Ask Phoebe_'s Phoebe Halliwell.

As the assistant entered the office, she placed the envelopes down on Phoebe's desk. Phoebe stopped typing and looked up from her computer.

'Hey,' said Phoebe. 'I haven't seen you around before.'

The assistant nodded a little nervously. 'It's my first day.'

'Oh cool. Well, if you need to know where anything is, feel free to ask me,' said Phoebe.

'Thanks,' said the assistant. She quickly exited the office while Phoebe picked up and opened the first envelope.

_Ask Phoebe_ had grown in popularity since its commencement in two thousand and two. The height in fame that the column had reached was quite ridiculous, really. Even Phoebe could never understand why a local advice column had become a national favourite. Phoebe had never admitted the peculiarity of this, because she enjoyed that her column had peaked the interest of more than just the Bay Area.

Each day the column received countless letters and vast numbers of emails. It was never possible for Phoebe to read through them all. Her aim over the years had always been to read as many as possible, so as she could pick out the best ones to reply to. At one point she even tried to answer them all – even the ones that she did not put in the paper. However with her chaotic demon vanquishing schedule, Phoebe had found that she was not able to keep that up. In addition to that, Phoebe found that in the past year, she had been reading less and less of them.

Phoebe finished reading through the first letter – a letter sent by someone that called themselves '_Always Finding Mister Wrong_'. Deciding that it was not interesting enough for her to answer in the column, Phoebe put it in a tray that was labelled '_no_'.

Phoebe picked up the next envelope and opened it. She read the letter – this one was from '_Sleepless In San Francisco_'. For now, the psychic witch decided to put this letter in a tray labelled '_maybe_'. When there was a suitable number of letters in the '_maybe_' tray, Phoebe would stop opening the unread letters and start sorting through the '_maybe_' tray to pick out a select few.

The third letter did not seem like anything special at first. However as the middle Charmed One read further into it, she went pale. Phoebe picked up her phone and began to dial.

**...**

In the bar area of _P3_, Piper was moving some bottles out of crates; Leo was polishing glasses; and Paige sat on a barstool, recounting what had happened in the meeting between her and the Elders to Piper and Leo. The only part that Paige made sure to leave out was the details alluding to the identity of the charge that Paige refused to take on that led to the Elders suspending Paige.

'So it looks like we are going to be limited to using cars to get to demon vanquishes for a little while,' concluded Paige.

Piper placed a bottle at the back of the bar as she said, 'No more instant orbing. We haven't had that, since…' Piper turned around to look at Leo as she continued. 'Well, I guess it wasn't until a little after _P3_ opened that you started to agree to orb us around.'

Leo shrugged, putting down the glass he had been polishing. 'Not really. The only person who I would orb with was you. It's generally against the rules but, after a while, that rule sort of went out the window and never got mentioned again.'

Piper rolled her eyes. 'Honey, we didn't need the history lesson.'

'I did,' said Paige. 'I only ever seem to learn what it was like back then in snippets.'

Piper took a deep breath and turned to Paige. 'The point was that I wanted to lead the topic onto _P3_.'

Paige looked at Piper questioningly. 'What about it?' Paige took a glance at her surroundings. 'It doesn't have money troubles again, does it? I mean, I know it took a lot of effort for you to get its popularity back up after we came back from the dead, but the club sure does tend to always be on the brink of closure – or at least it continually has been on the verge of getting closed down every other week for the past few years.'

'It's not on the brink of closure, because of a lack of money,' said Piper. She hesitated before adding, 'To be honest, I doubt the club will be closed at all if the owner knows a good business when they see one.'

Paige furrowed her brow. 'Paige wants to know why Piper is speaking in third person now.'

Piper smirked. 'Cute.' Piper's expression became grave almost immediately again as the smirk faded away. 'Paige, there's something you should know…'

'I think I'll go out back and bring up some more crates,' Leo said suddenly. He left the bar area, disappearing through a back door.

Piper smiled in the direction that Leo had left in. He knew that it would be easiest for her to tell Paige the news about Piper's idea to sell the club in private.

Paige sat up straight in her seat and quickly said, 'Right. Whatever you want to say can wait. While he's gone, we need to discuss you-know-what.'

Piper shook her head. 'Paige, what I want to say can't wait, or I might change my mind again.'

'I think the fact that your husband is listed as a potential whitelighter again is a lot more compelling than whatever you need to say,' Paige argued, adding one of her patented mugs of an expression to her persuasion tactic.

Piper nodded. 'You're right. So how is this even possible? He picked family over being an Elder. He fell from grace. Why do they want him back as a whitelighter?'

'I asked them that, all of that,' Paige replied. 'All they told me was that Leo's most recent actions have proved him worthy of a role as a whitelighter again.'

'That's not a good enough answer! If that was the real reason, they would have demoted him back to whitelighter status last year and then temporarily clipped his wings rather than the whole amnesiac test that resulted in that falling from grace malarkey!' complained Piper.

'Don't worry. I covered all of that when I spoke to them,' continued Paige. 'That's when they admitted that there's more to it.'

'What was it? What's going on?' Piper asked.

'They refused to give non-cryptic answers,' said Paige.

Piper narrowed her eyes suspiciously. 'So they did give you some form of answer then?'

Paige shrugged. 'Yes, but their answers lacked any detail. Apparently the Elders are preparing for something that they have sensed will happen in the near future.'

'What's that got anything to do with Leo?' Piper asked. 'Were they not more specific?'

'I don't know and no they weren't. Before I could ask anything more, Odin made his quip about us wanting no more communication with the Elders, and then orbed me down to the roadside of the bridge,' said Paige.

'Great. Just great,' said Piper sarcastically. 'Something's happening in the magical world and we don't know a thing.'

'That is what we wanted though. To have a life separate to that sort of thing,' Paige pointed out.

'I guess,' Piper began, but before she could continue, the _P3_ phone rang. Piper picked up the phone and said, 'Hello. You've reached _P3_.'

'_Finally! I tried the manor, you weren't there. I tried your own phone, it went to voicemail. I don't know why I didn't try _P3_ sooner. I always know I can contact you here if you're not home_,' came Phoebe's voice.

Piper winced at the last part about Phoebe always being able to depend on the thought that Piper could be found at _P3_. However, Piper pushed that thought away for the moment and asked, 'What's wrong, Pheebs?'

'You've got to listen to this. We may have an innocent to find,' Phoebe said.

'Hang on a sec,' said Piper. 'I'll put you on speaker. Paige is here.' Piper pressed a button on the handset. As Piper was doing this, Leo walked back into the bar area.

**...**

Phoebe sat at her desk in her office at the headquarters of the _Bay Mirror_ newspaper. Her phone was held between her right ear and her right shoulder as she held the letter in front of her.

'The two of you need to hear this. Okay. Here's one of the _Ask Phoebe_ letters I received today: '_Dear Phoebe. I guess you're used to getting letters asking you what to do when you find out a secret that a guy you've been dating has been keeping from you. I want to break up with him, but I don't know the safest way to do it. See, the problem is that the secret I found out was that he is a demon. When you take into consideration the fact that I'm a witch – and yes, I think he knows – I think I need some help from the Charmed Ones. From Dating A Demon_.' Got it? Or do I need to repeat any of it?'

'_I'm sorry_?' came Paige's voice. '_Since when did innocents contact us via your column? I thought they usually take the route of finding us at the manor or at _P3.'

Phoebe put the letter down on her desk and turned to her computer as she continued to speak. 'No. It's demons that like to find us at the manor and _P3_. Besides, Jinny used the column to contact me.'

'_Who_?' came Paige's voice.

'The genie. Over a year ago,' Phoebe said, putting her hand to her forehead as she waited for the expected response from her younger sister.

Paige laughed a little before adding, 'I'd almost forgotten about the time you turned into a genie.'

'The point is that Jinny sent her letter into my column. That's how I found her,' Phoebe said.

'_How do we know if we can trust the letter_?' Paige asked, all amusement had vanished from her tone. '_She was a demon. What if this one is too_?'

'I don't know. I'm trying to get a premonition from the letter, but… nothing,' Phoebe said dejectedly, focusing her eyes on the computer screen that currently had a search engine open.

'_You're the one who rang us, Pheebs_,' Piper reminded her sister. '_What are your instincts telling you_?'

Phoebe sighed. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes in an attempt to clear her mind and find an answer. As a consequence of this, Phoebe forgot all about making a response to her sister's question.

'_Phoebe_?' Paige asked, breaking the twenty second silence of the phone call.

Phoebe opened her eyes. 'I want to believe that she's what she says she is.' Phoebe began to type a postal address into the search engine that she had loaded up on her computer. With the confidence returning to her manner and her voice, Phoebe added, 'I don't know who this woman is, but she did leave her return address on the back of the envelope. We can go straight there and find out what's going on.'

'_So we can try and figure out whether she's a witch like she says_…' said Piper.

Phoebe frowned at the computer when the results of the postal address came back with no name as she continued to listen to her sisters speaking.

'_And then there's this demonic boyfriend of hers. We don't know what type of demon he is_…' said Paige.'_It does seem sort of odd for a demon to fall for a witch… Don't look at me like that, Piper! I know I'm speaking to Phoebe, but I think she'd rather we don't bring up her relationship history!_'

'_Then don't hint at it_,' Piper countered.

'_I didn't want to blatantly bring it up in front of Phoebe, but you have got to admit that it's relevant!_' Paige argued.

Phoebe was glad that she was speaking to her sisters via phone call at the moment, because if they could see her expression, they would realise just how much Phoebe no longer wanted to be part of the conversation. Annoyed with the current tangent, Phoebe decided to interrupt the discussion.

'There's an innocent involved, remember? Or at least, we hope she is one. Drop whatever you were doing and orb over here,' said Phoebe. There was a lot of hesitation on the other end of the line. Phoebe noticed this and added, 'What?'

'_Meet us in the car park outside your building. We'll be driving_,' Piper eventually said.

Phoebe looked puzzled. She took the phone in both her hands as she said, 'We need to act fast. I think orbing's more beneficial in this case.'

'_I can't orb_,' Paige said almost immediately. '_I'll explain when we get to your work_.'

'O… kay…' Phoebe said a little tentatively. Many possibilities of why her little sister could not currently orb were racing through her mind at the moment. 'Hurry.'

'_We will_,' said Piper.

**...**

In the bar area of _P3_, Piper put the phone down. Paige was already standing up to leave. Leo was leaning up against the bar.

'Honey, are you okay with continuing to set the club up for later without me?' Piper asked Leo.

'Of course. I know how it is. The innocent always comes first. Just like how my charges always had to come first when I was a whitelighter,' said Leo.

Piper and Paige exchanged an uncomfortable look as Leo's words reminded them of the thing they had not yet told him about.

**...**

A twenty something year old man walked through the streets of San Francisco. He had the appearance of a man with money. He wore an expensive looking suit, with an open collared shirt, and his entire outfit lacked a tie.

He entered a small florists and started looking through the selection of bouquets. The only other person present in the store was the owner who, after quickly glancing at her new customer, disappeared behind a door into a back room. A slightly younger demon shimmered in behind the smartly dressed man as he picked up a bouquet of red roses and surveyed them.

Without turning around to face the demon, the smartly dressed man said, 'What are you doing here, Joseph?'

The demon known as Joseph scowled. 'Why do you call me by that name?'

Still keeping his eyes glued on the bouquet of roses in his hands, the smartly dressed man said, 'We're on the surface world, Joseph. We have to blend in.'

'I don't like being on the surface world,' growled Joseph.

'Then go back to the Underworld,' replied the smartly dressed man. He put down the bouquet of roses and picked up a bouquet of yellow daisies instead.

'I intend to. You have to return with me,' said Joseph. His temper was rising and he was annoyed that his companion was not paying any attention. Joseph made his right hand into a fist and the bouquet of daisies in the smartly dressed man's hands disintegrated into ashes.

The smartly dressed man turned to face Joseph. 'I wish you wouldn't use that power in public.'

'You need to stop worrying about keeping up appearances, _Jimmy_,' said Joseph, putting emphasis on the smartly dressed man's mortal cover name.

'I have a life up here on the surface world,' said Jimmy. 'Father has nothing against it. He knows that I always put demonic duties first, but having an identity on the surface world is always beneficial to our family.'

'Yeah, but I bet he doesn't know that you are in love with one of _them_.' Joseph said this very spitefully. He looked disgusted at just the thought of it.

Jimmy looked at his feet guiltily. 'No. He doesn't…' Looking back up to face his brother, Jimmy added with a return of his poise: 'He doesn't need to know. You are not going to tell him and I am remaining here.'

'No…' mumbled Joseph.

Jimmy ignored his brother. Turning away from Joseph, Jimmy picked up a bouquet of petunias. With the bouquet in one hand, Jimmy pulled some cash out of his pocket with his other hand. Leaving the cash on the side for the owner to see when she returned, Jimmy left the florists.

As Jimmy continued along the street, he realised that his brother was following him. Slowing down so as Joseph could walk beside him, Jimmy asked, 'What are you doing?'

'You're on your way to see _her_, aren't you? I think it's about time she met a member of your family,' said Joseph unkindly.

Jimmy rolled his eyes. '_Please_ don't scare her off. You know that she doesn't know that secret.'

Joseph grinned wickedly. 'Why would I ever let that slip?'

Jimmy stopped and turned to face his brother. 'Don't you dare,' Jimmy said as his pupils flashed red for a second or two.

**...**

Piper's jeep skidded around a corner as she turned onto a new street. Piper was sat in the driver's seat while Phoebe was sat in the front passenger's seat with the letter still in her hands. Her eyes were closed tight. Paige was sat on the back seat with a street map open in front of her. Paige was leaning forward as she gave Piper directions.

'Piper, you were supposed to go left, not right!' Paige exclaimed.

Piper grimaced before spinning the steering wheel around to turn the car in the opposite direction.

'Tell me again why we don't have a sat nav,' complained Piper.

'We've never really needed one before,' said Paige. 'Just be glad that, thanks to scrying, we have tonnes of street maps of San Francisco lying around at _P3_, Phoebe's work, and the manor.'

Piper winced. Her sisters seemed to be mentioning _P3_ more often than usual that day of all days.

'Quiet down a little,' Phoebe said, opening her eyes. Her hands tightened on the letter, crumpling it a little. 'I am trying to trigger a premonition.'

'Maybe if you let the person who's giving the directions sit in the front seat, then you would be able to concentrate in the back,' Paige said a tad grumpily.

Ignoring her younger sister, Phoebe looked out the window, and suddenly said, 'Piper, this is it. This is the road.' Piper slowed the car down as Phoebe looked out for the correct house number. 'Okay, Piper, that's it. That's the house there. Number fifty eight.'

Piper stopped the car outside a big cream coloured house. The three sisters got out of the jeep and walked onto the front drive of the house.

'Let's hope our innocent's home,' said Piper. She knocked on the front door.

'I hope my readers don't start to think that I pay house calls to all the letters sent in,' Phoebe joked while the three of them waited for an answer. She looked down at the letter in her hand as she said it and her smile vanished completely.

After another minute of waiting, Piper sighed. 'This is pointless. She's not in, but we need to find out who she is.' Piper took one quick look around the street to check that it was still empty before flicking her wrists towards the door. The blast was small enough not to blow the door off it's hinges, but big enough to break the lock, allowing the door to swing open.

Piper stepped inside. Phoebe and Paige exchanged wide eyed looks of surprise at their sister's impatience. Paige entered the house next. Phoebe remained on the doorstep for a few seconds more – grimacing at the letter that she held tightly in her hands – before entering the house.

Phoebe found herself in the main hall of the house. A staircase to her left led to the next floor up, a door opposite her led to what looked like the kitchen, and a door to her right led to what looked like the front room. From her position in the hallway, Phoebe could see Piper rummaging through the drawers in the kitchen. Phoebe was about to follow her older sister into there when she noticed Paige in the front room.

The front room was quite spacious. It consisted of a flat screen television, a sofa, two overstuffed arm chairs, a coffee table, and a few bookshelves. Paige was looking through one of the bookshelves for any vital clue that would tell them something about the woman. She turned around when she heard footsteps behind her. Paige smiled at Phoebe.

'I don't know if you want to look upstairs… See what you can find…' Paige trailed off when she noticed that Phoebe was still holding the letter. 'Are you okay?'

Phoebe let out a sigh, not releasing her grip on the letter. 'Why wouldn't I be?'

Paige frowned. 'Why are you still holding the letter?'

Phoebe shrugged. She looked around the room, avoiding any eye contact, as she replied, 'You know… It's a premonition requirement…'

Paige was not accepting that as Phoebe's response. Completely ignoring the innocent identification task at hand, Paige said, 'Apparently me being a nosy little sister is also a requirement. So tell me, what's wrong?'

**...**

Jimmy and Joseph finally rounded the corner onto the street that Jimmy had been looking for. Unfortunately for him, Joseph was still making as many complaints as possible. He had so many that it was impossible to list them all. There was: 'The sun is far too bright. My eyes are literally burning up here'; 'That guy didn't even stop to let us cross the road! Why didn't you let me _make_ him stop?'; 'It smells up here. You know, the Underworld smells better'; and many more. All of which included the most recent:

'You know we could have just shimmered straight to her house,' Joseph said spitefully.

Like with every other complaint, Jimmy made no response or reaction. He just continued walking, and to his disdain, Jimmy kept on following him.

The two brothers finally reached the cream coloured house that was number fifty eight. With the bouquet in his left hand, Jimmy approached the door. He was about to knock when he noticed that the door was already ajar.

'Something wrong?' Joseph asked with a smirk.

Jimmy turned to his brother and indicated for him to be quiet. Jimmy quietly pushed the door further open so as he could enter the main hall. Joseph followed silently.

The first thing the two men heard was the sound of two female voices coming from the front room.

'I told you. I'm fine,' said the first voice a little irritably.

'You're not fine. I think I know you well enough by now to know when you're not fine,' said the second voice.

Jimmy and Joseph walked to the doorway of the front room. One of the women had her back to the doorway, but the second one did not. She noticed the men straight away.

'Er, Phoebe, we have visitors,' Paige said, not taking her eyes off the two men.

Phoebe slowly turned around. 'I guess you're wondering what we're doing here…' she said uneasily to Jimmy and Joseph.

'Is one of these two _her_?' Joseph asked, glaring at Phoebe and Paige.

Joseph decided not to even wait for a response. Instead he channelled his power into his right hand, closing it into a fist.

**...**

The kitchen of the house was relatively messy. Piper's instincts had made her choose the kitchen as the first room she would search for evidence of the woman's identity.

The first few cupboards that Piper had checked contained nothing but unused, still boxed cooking equipment and utensils. It was clear to her that whoever this woman was, she did not often get a chance to cook. This was backed up when Piper opened up a drawer that was overfilled with takeaway fliers.

The fifth drawer that Piper checked contained exactly the sort of thing that Piper had been looking for. Inside were a pile of opened envelopes. They were bills that had been stored away so as they could be used for accounting and tax purposes when necessary.

Piper took the top envelope and looked at the name that it was addressed to: _Miss Rachel Stone_. Piper grimaced. She was sure she recognised that name from somewhere, but she could not place it.

A shriek from another room was quickly followed by hearing Paige shout, 'Bo – Oh crap!' as a loud crash was heard and caused the floor to shudder. Piper immediately ran out of the kitchen into the hallway.

Two men were standing at the doorway to the front room. Piper flicked her wrists in their direction, causing the two men to freeze. Since the two frozen men were blocking the only entrance into the front room, Piper stood on her tiptoes to try and catch sight of her sisters.

'Are you two alright in there?' Piper asked.

From within the living room, Paige helped Phoebe to her feet. One of the bookshelves had collapsed not far from where the two sisters now stood. A pile of ash was visible on the floor in the same area that a sofa and two overstuffed armchairs were present.

'We're okay…' Paige managed to say, staring in awe at the fallen bookshelf. 'I hate my power. Apparently normal telekinesis doesn't need a vocal command and apparently I can't control it very well.'

'You did that?' Piper asked, still on her tiptoes as she peered past the two frozen men. Piper made the connection between the scene before her and what she had heard from the kitchen. Paige's shout of what must have been 'books' had been cut short by a shuddering crash of what must have been the entire bookshelf.

Phoebe had made her way over to the pile of ash. She looked from the pile of ash to the frozen man on the left that still had his fist raised. The frozen man on the right had grabbed hold of the former's raised arm.

When she saw that both her sisters were staring at her, Phoebe said quietly, 'He did that… He turned a television to ash.' Phoebe paused to gulp as she looked over at Paige. 'That was almost you, Paige…'

'What?' Piper said, perplexed.

'Don't worry. The other guy grabbed his arm to make him lose his aim,' Paige said.

'We know they're both demons,' Phoebe stated. 'So which one is _the_ demon that happens to be _the_ boyfriend?'

Before Piper could answer, the two men began to move in slow motion as they shook off the freeze. Piper flicked her wrists up instinctively, sending a blast at the backs of the two demons. However, it only helped to bring them out of the freeze faster as the blast knocked both of them further into the front room by a step or two.

Forcing Jimmy to release his arm, Joseph spun around to face Piper. He snarled at her as he said to his brother, 'There are three of them and they're witches!'

Jimmy did not immediately respond. He placed the bouquet of petunias gently on the nearby coffee table. He moved to the side to allow Piper to join her sisters. Instead of Piper entering the front room, however, Phoebe and Paige joined their older sister in the hallway. Jimmy eyed the three witches and he let a smirk fall upon his face.

'They're not just _any_ witches, Joseph. I believe we are honoured by the presence of the Charmed Ones,' Jimmy said. There was no anger in his voice despite Piper's violent reaction a few moments ago of attempting to vanquish him and his brother with both her defensive and offensive powers.

'Do you live here?' Paige asked, ignoring the glare she was receiving from Joseph, while trying to get some information out of the two demons by pretending she did not know.

'No, but I also know the person that does,' responded Jimmy confidently. 'May I ask who you are?'

'We're friends of the woman that lives here,' lied Phoebe. 'She likes hanging around with the Charmed Ones. We've taught her a lot about vanquishing demons.'

'Yeah? What's her name?' Joseph suddenly asked. It was obvious that he had not believed Phoebe's lie.

Phoebe exchanged a worried glance with Paige as neither of them could answer the question. Phoebe tightened her grip on the letter, hoping for an insightful premonition now more than she had before. Piper, however, smiled.

'Her name's Rachel,' Piper said confidently.

Joseph looked over at his brother for confirmation. Jimmy only nodded.

'Do you often break in to her house when you visit?' Jimmy asked, letting the sisters know that their lies were not working.

Phoebe sighed. 'Look, can we just get down to business? You know who we are. We know that you're demons, so… Which one of you is the boyfriend?' Phoebe asked, her hands still firmly grasping the crumpled letter.

'Rachel is safe. She's not a target. Leave now and she never has to know that people broke into her home,' Jimmy said seriously.

'We're not leaving. We're here to help her,' Phoebe said stubbornly.

'I don't want to fight you,' Jimmy said exasperatedly. 'We have no quarrel. So, please, leave now.'

Joseph let out an impatient growl as he said, 'You've been on the surface world for too long, brother! First you don't let me kill one of them and then you tell me they're the Charmed Ones! That's the only motive we need to start a fight!'

'Excuse me,' Jimmy said politely to the sisters. With those words, he grabbed his brother's shoulder before Joseph could start an attack, and shimmered the two of them out of the house.

The sisters exchanged confused looks.

'The demon of good manners. Who would have thought?' Piper said to lighten the atmosphere.

**...**

The two brothers reappeared in the main room of a small apartment that Jimmy had been renting out. Joseph fell to the ground as Jimmy let go of his shoulder. Joseph jumped to his feet angrily.

'What is wrong with you?' Joseph snarled.

'You are, blatantly,' Jimmy said. 'You don't know how I handle things up here. Stay away from that house. If I find you there again, that will be the last destination you ever shimmer to.'

Joseph made no reply. He shimmered out, back to the Underworld, while glaring at his brother.

**...**

The three sisters had returned to the front room of the cream coloured house. Paige was waving her arm towards the bookshelf, trying to trigger her telekinesis to move the piece of furniture upright. The crumpled letter was still gripped between Phoebe's two hands as she stared at the ash on the floor.

Piper wandered over to Phoebe. 'Is everything okay with you?'

Phoebe jumped, having been so far off in her thoughts that the sudden sound of Piper's voice had scared her.

Phoebe looked at Piper and replied, 'Why is everyone asking me that?'

'This must be bringing back memories that you'd rather not think about,' Piper said with concern in her tone.

'Piper, _please_, do me a favour and don't continue that train of thought,' Phoebe said, allowing her tears to go no further than making her eyes look watery. Phoebe took a deep breath and continued a little more assertively with: 'You two should go. See if you can identify those two demons in the Book. I'll stay here. Someone needs to be here when Rachel gets home.'

'What if the demons return?' Piper asked.

'That's the point. I'm here to keep Rachel safe,' Phoebe replied frostily.

Piper wanted to argue with Phoebe. She also wanted to say something to make her younger sister feel better. Both instinctive reactions contradicted one another, so Piper decided to let Phoebe be.

'When you're ready to talk, let me know,' Piper said resolutely.

Piper turned to face Paige. The youngest Charmed One was still swinging her arm in aggravation at the unmoving bookshelf. Piper smiled to herself, realising that with Paige's growing annoyance, it would not be long before Paige triggered her power of telekinesis.

Right on cue, the bookshelf flipped back up against the wall, causing the wall to shudder a little from the jolt. This action was quickly followed by the bookshelf's original contents flying back into their previous positions.

Panting a little from the length of time she had been waving her arm, Paige turned to her sisters and said with a grin, 'This telekinesis thing is a piece of cake.'

**...**

The drive from the cream coloured house to _P3_ had only taken around twenty minutes. Piper and Paige made their way down the stairwell until they reached _P3_'s main floor. Leo was not present at the bar which probably meant that he was out back sorting out some crates. Therefore the main floor was empty except for the two sisters.

'Tell me again why the Book's here and not at home,' Paige repeated for what seemed to be the twelfth time within the past twenty minutes.

Piper sighed. 'I already told you. With all the demons that like to invade our home when we're out, I thought it might be best not to let it out of our sight. The Book goes wherever we go. We can't risk another demon getting a hold of it after what Zankou managed.'

'The Book didn't go to that house with us,' Paige pointed out.

Piper rolled her eyes. 'Well, duh. Leo was still here with the Book. I think I can trust my own husband.'

The two sisters had reached the door that led to Piper's office and entered. Paige sat down on Piper's office chair, while Piper removed some crystals that had surrounded a locked filing cabinet. Piper then unlocked the filing cabinet and pulled out the Book. Rather than placing it on the desk, Piper walked out of the office with the Book. Paige followed with the crystals.

Out on the main floor, Piper placed the Book on top of the bar. She began to flip through it. Paige joined Piper and sat down on a barstool, putting the crystals down on the bar.

'What's going to happen if someone walks in and sees you with that?' Paige asked, raising an eyebrow.

'Go and lock the entrance then,' Piper replied, not looking up from the Book as she continued her search.

Paige let out a huffy breath before standing up and disappearing up the stairs. Meanwhile Leo re-entered the bar area with a crate of freshly polished glasses.

'You're back,' Leo said happily. He suddenly noticed the Book and added, 'I'm going to guess that the demonic boyfriend's still walking around.'

Piper nodded. She did not look up to greet her husband, but she did ask 'Do you know anything about demons with the ability to turn objects to ash?' as she turned another page.

Leo frowned as he thought through the knowledge of demons that he had collected during his time as a whitelighter, his time as an Elder, and his time as an Avatar. Piper stopped turning the pages and looked up at her husband when she realised he was taking quite some time to make a response.

As their eyes finally made contact with one another, Leo came out of his thoughts and said, 'Help me narrow this down a little. Was he immune to your power?'

'_They_ wouldn't still be walking around if they weren't immune to her power,' Paige interjected as she returned to the bar area and sat down next to Piper.

'Right,' said Leo, breaking eye contact with his wife to greet his sister-in-law. 'Wait, did you say they?'

'There were two of them there, and one of them was the boyfriend,' Paige continued.

'Okay…' Leo said. 'So _they_ must be upper level to survive your power.'

'We already sussed that much, Leo,' Piper said, returning her gaze to the Book. 'Have you got any suggestions for us?'

'What else did you find out about them?' Leo asked.

Piper had begun flipping through the Book again, so Paige opted to answer. 'The boyfriend was eerily polite… for a demon. Oh, and it sounded like they called each other brother. So either they're part of a demonic clan or they actually are brothers.'

Leo furrowed his brow. 'Anything more? This is all sounding familiar, but I can't figure out where I know it from.'

'One of them said something to the other about living on the surface for too long, I think. I guess that could imply this demonic family or clan is spread out between both the Underworld and our world,' Paige said with a shrug. 'I don't know if that's any help.'

Leo shook his head. 'That's still far too broad.' Leo turned to Piper and asked, 'Any luck?'

Piper sighed and looked up. 'Nope.'

'See. This is why the attic is a better place for the Book,' Paige said righteously. Looking upwards, she added, 'If we were there, we could be asking for a little supernatural help right about now.' Nothing happened. 'They're probably watching us right now thinking it's best not to risk that here.'

Piper let out another sigh before slamming the Book shut. 'You'll be happy to know then that the Book won't be finding itself here anytime soon, Paige, because I'm selling it,' Piper began to say in an annoyed tone.

Paige's eyes widened in surprise. 'You're selling the Book?'

Piper slumped her head onto the Book in frustration.

'Okay. That was the wrong time for me to try a joke. Piper, are you sure you want to sell the club? Isn't that a little out of the blue?' Paige said.

Piper did not pick her head up from the Book. Instead she made a motion with her hand, indicating for Leo to answer for her.

'Piper's always wanted a restaurant. She thinks that if she doesn't do it now, she never will,' Leo replied. Then changing his tone, he hinted, 'And we are all very supportive of her decision.'

Catching on to Leo's implication, Paige said, 'Of course. Sure, I'll miss _P3_, but you've got to follow your dream…' Paige paused for a second or two before adding: 'Does Phoebe know?'

**...**

Phoebe was pacing the front room when a woman with short, curly blonde hair wandered in. At the sight of Phoebe, the woman's first words were: 'I'm calling the police.'

'Wait,' Phoebe said, finally dropping the letter as she rushed into the hallway where the woman was already dialling a number. 'Rachel, I'm here to help you.'

The woman put the phone down before she had completed dialling. She stared at Phoebe angrily.

'You break into my own home while I'm at work, and then you have the audacity to tell me that you're here to help me. Here's a helpful hint: Don't break into my home,' Rachel said spitefully.

Phoebe's expression became apologetic. 'I'm sorry. That wasn't exactly my choice. It's just that I take my column very seriously and when you –'

'Your column. Oh, that's right. That's where I know you from. You're _Ask Phoebe_,' Rachel said, rolling her eyes. 'Are you really going to all this trouble just for an interview?'

'An interview?' Phoebe questioned, puzzled. 'Look, I think your boyfriend must have found out about your letter and put you under a spell, because you don't seem to realise why I'm here.'

'A spell? Are you nuts?' Rachel said. 'Could you please leave before I call the police?'

Phoebe stared at Rachel, trying to figure out whether the woman was saying these things, because: a) she was scared that her boyfriend would find out; b) he _had_ in fact put her under a spell; or c) she really did not know anything.

Phoebe decided to take the cautious route. 'You misheard me. I said… he put you down as so swell when he told me all about you.'

Rachel looked at Phoebe suspiciously.

'He contacted me and suggested I write a piece about your relationship in my column,' Phoebe continued to improvise. 'Do you mind telling me about your relationship?'

Phoebe tried to direct Rachel into the front room, but Rachel did not move. She was still standing right by the telephone.

'Do you mind telling me why you broke in?' Rachel asked sternly.

'I told you that I didn't…' Phoebe said guiltily. It was the truth. _She_ had not broken in; Piper had. 'I arrived at the same time as your boyfriend. We noticed the door open and he asked me to look after the house while he ran a few errands that involved finding a locksmith to sort you out a new lock.' Phoebe finished with one last lie: 'It's already been reported to the police.'

Phoebe paused to peer into the front room. When she noticed the bouquet that Jimmy had left on the table, she picked them up and handed them to Rachel.

'He left these for you,' Phoebe said.

This final act of revealing the petunias that Jimmy knew were her favourite was all that was needed to convince Rachel that Phoebe had met Jimmy and therefore might be telling the truth.

'Was anything stolen?' Rachel asked Phoebe.

Rachel noticed Phoebe's eyes quickly dart into the front room and back to hers. This caused Rachel to run past Phoebe into the front room. Rachel didn't even notice the ash on the floor. All she noticed was that the flat screen television was not there.

'Great,' Rachel said sarcastically, slumping onto one of the overstuffed armchairs. 'That television was new.'

Phoebe had remained at the doorway, but she chose this moment to enter and sit down on the sofa.

'Tell me about your boyfriend,' Phoebe said with a helpful smile. 'It will help to take your mind off things.'

'Well, you already know his name is Jimmy Walsh…' Rachel began.

Phoebe nodded, pretending that this information was not new to her. 'Of course. He hasn't told me much about how the two of you met. Could you?'

Rachel shrugged. 'Why not? I could do with looking back on some good memories after such a terrible day.'

Phoebe sighed. 'Good memories with him, huh? That's nice. Would you like me to make you a cup of tea first? Or maybe a coffee?'

'You don't have to offer. It's my house,' Rachel said.

Phoebe smiled half-heartedly. 'Really, I don't mind. You've had a busy day and a burglary.'

'Tea please and… Thank you,' Rachel said, giving Phoebe a friendly smile for the first time that day.

Phoebe stood up and made her way into the kitchen. She switched the kettle on and let out a defeated sigh. _Good memories with a demonic boyfriend_… Phoebe felt like she was having a worse than terrible day.

Regaining her composure, Phoebe removed her phone from her purse and dialled her sister's number.

**...**

Paige was taking her turn at looking through the Book at the bar. Meanwhile Leo was in the middle of putting up some posters. Paige's mind was beginning to wander. She could not help but think about the Elders' words earlier that afternoon.

'Do you like this work?' Paige asked Leo, looking up from the Book.

Leo put down the poster that he had been about to attach to a wall. He turned to face Paige who had swung around on her barstool to face him.

'Are you asking that because you have reservations about Piper selling the bar?' Leo asked. 'I'm happy helping out wherever I can.'

Paige shook her head. 'No. It's not because of that. I was just wondering whether you ever miss being a… an Elder.' Paige frowned and then corrected herself. 'Or you know, a whitelighter.'

Leo shrugged. 'A normal life is definitely… different, but I'm with my family and that's what matters.' Leo furrowed his brow, making the wrong assumption as to why Paige had asked him that. 'Paige, you shouldn't feel lost just because they've temporarily clipped your wings. You're still helping people as a witch – a Charmed One – like you always have. Being a whitelighter does not change who you are.'

Paige blushed and decided it was best to agree with his assumption rather than have him think there was something else going on: 'Thanks for that, Leo.'

Leo smiled. 'No problem.' He picked the poster back up and turned back to the wall.

Piper walked out of her office over to the bar and put her phone down on the bar top.

'Phoebe just phoned,' Piper said. 'The boyfriend's name is Jimmy Walsh. See if you can find the name Walsh anywhere in the Book. For all we know, he may have been dumb enough to use his demonic name in his mortal cover.'

Paige nodded and flipped to the front of the Book again. Leo put down his most recently picked up poster and wandered over to the bar.

'Walsh… Walsh…' he murmured.

Piper eyed her husband. 'Do you recognise the name?' she asked.

Leo nodded. He turned to Paige. 'Try 'ancestral demons', Paige.'

'I think I passed that entry earlier, but that had nothing to do with –' Paige began but Leo interrupted her.

'Then go back to that page,' Leo insisted.

'Okay,' Paige said agitatedly. She flipped a few pages until she found it. 'Here.' Paige shifted over on her barstool so as Piper and Leo could read over her shoulder.

'_'Ancestral Demons' is an umbrella term for demons that are part of a lineage that goes back further than most demons. They consist of an indefinite number of families. Each family has a type of power that is unique to that of others._

_Unlike the average demon, ancestral demons have a similar lifespan to that of a human. All ancestral demons are upper level, but unlike the average upper level demon, they have no demonic form._

_In order to fit in amongst mortals, some members of a family may live on the surface while the rest of that family remains in the Underworld. This allows the family to have a multitude of options available to them when required._

_Ancestral demons are more discriminative in their choice of victims than the average demon. An ancestral demon will only target a being that they have a disagreement with. They do not kill in order to gain power._'

Piper stopped reading at this point and said, 'Well, that explains Mister Manner's reluctance to attack us.'

'Looks like his little brother didn't agree with that way of life, if that's what those two really were,' Paige said, still not agreeing that Leo had identified them correctly. 'This can't be them.'

'It is.' Leo's words were adamant. 'Walsh demons are a well known family of ancestral demon. Their unique inherited powers tend to revolve around molecular manipulation. Sounds like one of the two that you met had the power of molecular deconstruction.'

'So I guess that leaves us with one big question: Is Rachel one of their targets?' Piper brainstormed. 'Demons can't actually love, especially when these ancestral demons are full demons…'

'There's only one way to find out. You need to speak to the head of their family,' Leo said.

'There's no summoning spell in the entry,' Piper pointed out.

'Yes, but there is still a way to contact them,' Leo countered. 'Keep reading the entry.'

Piper sighed and looked back at the Book of Shadows. Paige was already reading the next part.

'_Ancestral demons are impervious to spells and potions, due to the various immunities that they have inherited throughout their existence . This means that they can be difficult to summon and vanquish._

_How to contact an ancestral demon: Summon a 'Squealer Demon'. See the entry on squealer demons for the correct spell._'

Paige groaned. 'They couldn't put the spell on the same page?' Fortunately, the squealer demon entry happened to be on the following page, so it did not take long to find.

'_A 'Squealer Demon' is a relatively low level demon that knows everything that's going on in the Underworld. Despite their lack of offensive powers, squealer demons have a knack for surviving due to their ability to provide their adversaries with the required information. This species of demon is also widely used amongst demons to spread a message or relevant information around the Underworld_.'

Below the entry were a summoning spell and a simple vanquishing spell. No potions were required. The Power of Three was not even required.

Piper turned to Leo and asked, 'If these squealers are easy to summon and get information from, why have we never used them before?'

Leo sighed. 'It's always been against the rules for me to mention them. The Elders don't like the use of demons for finding information.' Noticing the glares he was getting from his wife and sister-in-law, Leo added, 'Yeah. I know they're not my bosses or colleagues anymore.'

Paige turned away from Leo to her sister. 'Are we summoning this demon then?'

'It's the only way to find out what we need to know about this Jimmy guy,' Piper replied. 'Be ready to put those crystals down when our visitor arrives.'

Paige picked up the crystals from the bar and waited for Piper to start, but Piper turned to Leo, and added: 'Honey, could you try and make sure no fragile glasses or equipment are out in the open. I know this demon doesn't have much power, but I am going to be selling this place soon, so I kind of don't want to start making losses now.' Leo smiled at his wife's neurotic tendencies and began to move a couple of glasses out of view.

Piper picked the Book of Shadows up and turned to face the empty main floor as she read from the entry: '_Demon that squeals in the night, answer my calls in this plight_.' A tunnel of wind had begun to form in the middle of the main floor as she had read the first two lines of the spell.'_I summon thee here, to find information that I hold dear_,' Piper concluded.

The tunnel of wind disappeared to reveal a stout, balding man. Paige had already placed the crystals around him before he could figure out where he was.

'This… this isn't the Underworld..?' the squealer demon said as he eyed the club. His eyes finally landed on the three figures before him. He gulped with sudden fright. 'Witches? Er… You surely haven't summoned me just to vanquish me… If you let me survive I can give you information…'

Piper rolled her eyes as she muttered, 'Coward.'

Paige – expert demon interrogator that she had proved herself to be over her years as a Charmed One – decided to play along with the possibility that they had summoned him just to vanquish him: 'There's only one thing that's going to stop us from vanquishing you.'

The squealer demon's eyes widened in fear. 'What is it? I'll do anything. What do you need to know?'

Paige smirked. 'Fine… We won't vanquish you _if_ you find the head of the Walsh family for us. Get him to turn up here. Tell him the Charmed Ones invited him to _P3_.'

The squealer demon's jaw dropped in surprise. Whether his gaping had been caused by realising that the two witches that had summoned him were two of the three Charmed Ones or by the suggestion of having to pass a message onto the head of the Walsh family.

After a brief silence, the squealer demon nodded. 'I agree. Let me go and I will make sure he gets your request.'

'We want him here within the next ten minutes,' Piper added as she approached the demon.

The squealer demon nodded quickly. 'Express delivery. I understand. Now let me go.'

Piper bent down to pick up one of the crystals, but then she stopped. Without picking it up, she stood up to face the demon – or look down at him, as he was a little shorter than her.

'One more thing. _After_ you've given Walsh the message, could you spread the word throughout the Underworld that the Charmed Ones will no longer have ownership over _P3_. Therefore demons shouldn't turn up here looking for us, because they won't find any of us here. Okay?' Piper said mulishly.

When the squealer demon nodded again, Piper removed one of the crystals. By the time she had stood upright again, the demon had already shimmered out. Piper turned to face Paige and Leo who were staring at her from the bar.

'Did you just tell a demon – and, as a result, the entire Underworld – that you were selling _P3_ before telling Phoebe?' Paige asked, her expression full of shock.

Piper suddenly looked a little at fault. 'What? I had to get the message out there, especially after you and Phoebe pointed out to me earlier how often demons choose to come here.'

**...**

Phoebe was sitting in the front room of the cream coloured house with Rachel. The owner of the house sat on the very edge of her seat as she explained her relationship history to the advice columnist.

Rachel's body language was extremely positive as she spoke so lovingly about Jimmy. Phoebe could not understand where the letter had come from, because this woman did not seem to know that her boyfriend was a demon. Phoebe also was starting to get the feeling that the woman was not a witch.

However these were not the thoughts that were plaguing Phoebe's mind as she sat on the sofa listening to Rachel's words. Phoebe was over Cole. She knew that. She had had many relationships since that one; she had even briefly dated another demon since.

Despite Jimmy's deception, Rachel's relationship with him seemed so real. Jimmy's earlier actions: Saving Paige from his brother's fatal power and refusing to start a fight with the Charmed Ones. Jimmy had not done that out of fear. He had done that, because he did not want to get involved in a fight that had nothing to do with him. Then there was that nagging feeling in the back of her mind: _…but, like Cole, he's a demon and despite the possibility that they think they can love, they can't, and as a witch, it's my duty to vanquish him…_

'…but as someone so invested in helping others find love, is it?' Phoebe found herself muttering in response to that irksome thought.

'Pardon?' said Rachel, realising that Phoebe had uttered something.

'Nothing,' said Phoebe, not realising that, like her priorities, her expression was currently contorted.

**...**

The lights suddenly went out in _P3_, leaving Piper, Paige, and Leo in complete darkness.

'Is it me or do the bigger demons always like to make a grand entrance?' Piper said touchily. She rolled her eyes, which was a pointless action considering no one could see her.

'Well, how else can they amuse themselves when they're not planning how to kill us?' Paige asked rhetorically.

'I don't think this is the best time to be making jokes,' Leo warned the sisters.

'No, Leo. Let Piper and Paige continue. I'm sure they invited me here just to waste all of our time,' said an impressive, smooth male voice.

'If you already know our names, don't you think you could make it fair by telling us yours?' Paige asked.

'And,' Piper added with increasing aggravation. 'Turn the damn lights back on!'

'All you had to do was ask. There is no need to swear, Piper,' responded the voice.

The lights came back on. A man was visible all the way across the main floor. He was sitting in the sisters' personal booth. He had short dark hair and looked like he was in his forties. He had very similar features to that of the Walsh brothers. The man wore a dark suit with a matching tie. His arms were folded as he leant back against his seat with his sights on the two sisters and Leo.

Piper, Paige, and Leo slowly walked over to their usual booth. When they reached the familiar circle table, they did not sit down. They remained standing.

'Thank you for the invite, Piper,' the demon said condescendingly, the self-righteous smile never leaving his expression.

'My sister asked you to tell us your name,' Piper said, glaring at the demon.

'My name? You need not know my demonic name, but… Seeing as this is the surface world, let's stick to mortal cover names…' rambled the demon. 'Jackson Walsh.'

'It wouldn't surprise me if Jimmy's brother's name starts with a J too,' Paige commented to Piper.

Jackson overheard this remark. His smile was replaced with a look of concern as he stood up from his seat at the booth. 'You have met my sons?'

Piper smiled at hearing the snide demon's bewilderment. 'How can you know so much about us, but not know that we bumped into them earlier today?' she asked.

Jackson's smile returned along with a slightly bored tone at having to explain. 'You are mistaken. When I received your invite, I did some research into the background of the Charmed Ones.'

Leo raised an eyebrow. 'That squealer demon only left with the message five minutes ago.'

Jackson nodded indifferently. 'What can I say? I'm a quick study.'

Piper rolled her eyes. 'Obviously not quick enough if you didn't get to the part about what happened today.'

In a bored tone, Jackson said, 'I doubt Jimmy committed any offenses according to your witchy rules…'

'It depends whether or not our innocent is being targeted by your family,' Paige countered.

'Targeted? Whatever do you mean?' Jackson asked, still extremely uninterested in the direction that the discussion was going in.

'We've read the entry on ancestral demons. You may be very selective about your victims, but, like any demon, you still kill,' Piper explained candidly.

'That's a moot point,' Jackson argued.

Piper narrowed her eyes apprehensively. 'I don't think it is.'

Jackson shook his head. 'I'm disappointed in you, Piper. Your Book of Shadows told you all about my kind, yet you won't let it get through your thick skull.'

'Don't you speak to Piper that way!' Leo shouted angrily.

Jackson looked over at Leo regretfully. 'You of all people, Leo. From being an ex-whitelighter and an ex-Elder, you are so one-sided. Even as an ex-Avatar… You're not very open to new ideas.'

'Okay. This guy couldn't have found out all of this about us in five minutes,' Paige muttered irritably. She quickly corrected herself with: 'I meant the part about the Book and Leo's past actions' so as to stop herself receiving a glare from the sister that had been accused of being thick skulled.

Becoming evermore bored with the conversation, Jackson ignored Paige's rambling in order to continue his explanation: 'Does your book not tell you that we're not like the average demon? We don't start fights.' He paused to look at each member of his small audience. 'My older son may live on the surface world, but our family has had no quarrels with mortals or witches for a very long time.'

'Ha. Yeah, right,' Piper said, not convinced. 'I don't think we're going to believe hearing that from a demon.'

Jackson shook his head again. 'You all seem to forget that it's not all black and white. Not all demons do bad. Just like, not all witches do good.' Jackson chuckled a little before adding: 'Pity that the Charmed witch that that applies to most isn't even present.'

Piper snarled at the demon. 'Phoebe isn't anything like you!'

Jackson's smile loitered as he replied, 'So you admit then that a demon doesn't have to be bad?'

Paige had an expression of disbelief on her face. 'Next you're going to suggest that ancestral demons can love.'

Jackson's interest in the conversation made a sudden return on hearing Paige's remark. 'What are you implying?'

'That our innocent is under threat from your son, because we know that demons – whatever type – cannot love,' Paige said bitterly.

If this bout of news had not thrown the Walsh demon so much, he probably would have retorted with the names _Cole Turner_ and _Drake dè Mon_. The seriousness of the matter made him hold his tongue on continuing the debate.

Jackson pointed upwards with the index finger on his right hand. He moved that hand in a counter clockwise circle as he uttered the name: 'Jimmy.' Within seconds a trail of bubbling molecules whizzed in through an air conditioning vent. As the bubbling molecules reached the floor in the space between the Jackson and the others, it coalesced into the form of Jimmy.

Jimmy was facing Piper, Paige, and Leo. He looked at them before noticing where he was: 'This isn't the Underworld.'

'I'll tell the estate agent to add that to the list of unique selling points for this place,' Piper said snippily after hearing it from two demons in the space of one afternoon.

Jimmy did not reply. Instead he spun on his heel to face his father. 'Father? Why did you bring me here?' He turned back around to face Piper, Paige and Leo. 'You told my father on me?' he said disbelievingly.

'We need to know that our innocent is safe,' was Paige's unsympathetic reply.

'I told you already!' Jimmy growled. 'I'm not a threat to her!'

'So the Charmed Ones were telling the truth? You do have feelings for a… for a…' Jackson's words trailed off as Jimmy turned to face his father.

'Yes, father. I am in love with a mortal,' Jimmy said, shamefacedly.

'Wait, did he just say mortal?' Leo questioned. 'Didn't Phoebe say that, in her letter, Rachel said she was a witch?'

Jimmy turned back around to look at Leo. 'She's definitely not a witch.'

'Why would she lie in her letter?' Piper asked.

'What letter?' Jimmy asked, not waiting for an answer. He turned back to face his father. Jackson had not spoken a word since Jimmy's admission. Jackson stared stonily at his son. 'Father, I am sorry.'

'You must return to the Underworld,' Jackson finally uttered, little to no feeling visible in his words.

Jimmy declined the order. 'I can't do that. Not until Rachel's safe.'

'Safe?! Haven't you just been trying to convince us that she already is safe?' Piper pointed out.

Jimmy turned around again; this time, he faced Piper. 'She is safe… from me.' He took a deep breath before continuing with: 'She's not safe from Joseph.'

'Joseph? That's your brother, right? The extremely antagonistic guy from the house?' Paige asked.

Jimmy confirmed this for Paige with a sullen nod. 'Joseph's going through a rebellious phase where he thinks that every non-ancestral demon is a threat.'

**...**

Joseph shimmered into Jimmy's presently empty apartment. His expression was seething with anger, an anger that was only growing by the minute.

The young ancestral demon started throwing object after object into the walls as he rampaged the apartment. Finally he reached a cabinet on which sat a quaint framed photo of Rachel hugging Jimmy closely.

Joseph's pupils flashed red as he made a fist with his hand, causing the photo and its frame to disintegrate. Joseph shimmered out, his destination already decided by the anger within him.

**...**

Back in the cream coloured house, Phoebe was still wondering whether her past vanquishing decisions had been necessary as she listened all about the wonderful relationship that Rachel had had with Jimmy.

Rachel paused in her sentence to ask: 'Are you sure you're going to remember all of this? You're not writing it down.'

Phoebe looked taken aback at the random question before remembering that the lie she had given to convince Rachel to let her stay had been to do with an _Ask Phoebe_ feature.

'Oh, er, I've got a Dictaphone in my bag,' Phoebe quickly improvised. 'It's been recording this the whole time.'

Rachel smiled. 'Oh, of course. That would make sense. Now where was I?'

Rachel sat back in her overstuffed armchair that happened to have its back towards the doorway. From where Phoebe sat, she could see the doorway clearly. Therefore, Phoebe was the only one to notice Joseph's entrance as he shimmered into the hallway.

Phoebe's eyes widened in alarm. She stood up automatically. Not knowing what was wrong, Rachel also stood up. She turned around and saw Joseph walking into the room. He was glaring at Rachel as he used his strength to throw her recently vacated armchair across the room.

Rachel let out a small shriek of terror. 'Who are you?' she managed to say.

Phoebe pushed Rachel behind her, so as Joseph would have to go through Phoebe before he faced Rachel. Recalling that Joseph's power emanated from his hands, Phoebe grabbed hold of both of his wrists as she propelled her knee upwards into his abdomen.

Joseph was not fazed. He ripped his hands out of Phoebe's grasp and shoved past her to get to Rachel. He lifted Rachel up with his right hand and began to close his left hand into a fist.

Phoebe took a fighting tip out of Leo's book and jumped onto Joseph's back, clinging to him, in order to divert his attention. Angered evermore, Joseph released his grip on Rachel, sending her flying across the room into one of the bookshelves. The contents and fragments of the bookshelf collapsed on top of Rachel as she lost consciousness.

Joseph shimmered out and Phoebe fell to the floor. Joseph shimmered back in right next to Phoebe.

'If you wanted me to kill you first, you only had to ask, witch,' growled Joseph.

**...**

Back in _P3_, Piper was still in a rather argumentative mood about the morals of demons.

'I thought you said ancestral demons didn't _do_ bad,' Piper said harshly.

'We only usually attack others as a form of defence. Joseph is finding it hard to cope with the possibility of living like that,' Jackson replied. 'He doesn't understand our concept.'

'He's not the only one,' muttered Paige.

Jimmy – who had joined his father's side, so as not to be in the middle of the discussion – suddenly grimaced. His grimace quickly changed into a look of utter outrage.

'What is _he_ doing _there_?' Jimmy fumed.

'Who's where?' Piper asked.

'Joseph. Rachel's house. I told him _not_ to go there. I told him I'd kill him if he did.' Jimmy said no more than that before shimmering out.

'Phoebe,' Piper breathed, worriedly.

'Rachel,' Paige added with concern.

They turned to look at Jackson who was still standing by their booth.

'What are you waiting for? Do that twirly thing with your hand to bring Joseph here, away from our innocent!' Piper ordered.

Jackson shook his head remorsefully.

'Not even to stop one of your sons from killing the other?' Leo asked.

'Both of my sons have a lesson to learn. Once they have learnt it, I will intervene,' Jackson clarified.

Pointing upwards, Jackson whirled his hand around, causing the _P3_ lights to go out. When the lights turned back on a few seconds later, Jackson was nowhere to be seen.

'The house is a twenty minute drive away,' Piper said frantically. 'We'll never get there in time.'

Paige grabbed Piper's shoulder. 'I'll orb u –' Paige stopped halfway through that final word. 'We'll drive as fast as possible.'

The two sisters spared no time in running up the staircase and out of _P3_, leaving Leo to hope that everything turned out for the best.

**...**

The atmosphere of the cream coloured house's front room had turned into that of a sparring ring as Phoebe and Joseph stared one another down, waiting for the other to make the first move.

Phoebe was vigilant of his hands. She was pretty adamant that she did not want to be turned into a pile of dust. Joseph began to close the fingers of his left hand into a fist. Phoebe swung a kick at his hand.

Joseph grabbed his left hand as he howled in pain. Phoebe smiled, believing that she had found a weak spot in the demon's resistant armour. Phoebe ran out into the hallway, hoping that Joseph would follow her rather than turn his attention back to Rachel.

Fortunately for Phoebe, Joseph had meant what he had said about killing her first. He followed her into the hallway and then into the kitchen as Phoebe made her way to it.

In the kitchen, Phoebe scanned the countertop in her search for anything sharp. She immediately found the block that held the knives. She drew a knife out of the block and turned around just as Joseph reached her.

Phoebe threw the knife towards him, but Joseph easily swatted it away.

'Only another demon would be strong enough to kill me with a knife,' he said menacingly.

'Good thing there's another one present then, isn't it?' Jimmy exclaimed as he shimmered in behind Joseph.

Jimmy grabbed Joseph and shimmered out with him. Phoebe assumed that Jimmy was attempting to take Joseph back to the Underworld. However, there appeared to be a struggle mid-shimmer, because both men re-materialised further down the hallway, falling onto the floor.

A brief fight on the floor took the two men into the front room. Phoebe ran into the hallway and then into the front room, running past the fighting brothers to check on the unconscious Rachel. Phoebe began to move the bookshelf debris and books off Rachel's injured form.

Jimmy eventually managed to pin Joseph down on the floor.

'What are you going to do? Kill me?' Joseph suggested mockingly.

'That's the intention, though I hoped I wouldn't have to do so in this house,' Jimmy replied.

'I'm not moving,' Joseph said spitefully. 'The only way I'm leaving is if you kill me.'

'You don't believe I'll do it?' grumbled Jimmy.

'Why would you?' Joseph asked.

Jimmy lifted one of his hands from the floor and held it out towards the ash that had once formed a flat screen television. With his hand held out flat, the ash began to propel towards it. As the ash flew across the room, it reconstructed into the form of a very sharp dagger. Jimmy caught it and pointed it at his brother.

'You hurt someone I love,' Jimmy replied, before plunging the dagger down towards his brother's chest.

Before the dagger could make contact with Joseph, he vanished in a bubbling form of molecules that flew out of the room and then out of the house. The dagger plunged into the carpet. Jimmy stood up, brushing any dirt from his suit with his hands.

From her position next to Rachel, Phoebe asked, 'Where'd your brother go? That wasn't shimmering.'

Jimmy sighed as he approached Phoebe and Rachel. 'My father transported Joseph back to the Underworld.'

'Does that mean Joseph may come back?' Phoebe asked as Jimmy leant down next to his unconscious girlfriend.

The only injury that Rachel had received from the collapsing bookshelf was a bloody gash on her forehead. Jimmy hovered his hand over the wound, flattening his hand as he did so. Using his power of molecular reconstruction, he was able to reconstruct the skin cells necessary to close the wound – in effect, he was healing her.

As Jimmy did this, he replied to Phoebe's question with: 'My father's intervened. That means that he won't let Joseph return to the surface world for a long while. Rachel will be safe.'

Rachel's eyes opened at this point. She immediately hugged Jimmy on seeing him there.

'You're okay now,' Jimmy assured Rachel. Phoebe noticed that Jimmy had an expression of despair as he said those words.

Jimmy helped Rachel to her feet and she looked around. 'What happened?' she asked.

'Something that won't ever happen again,' Jimmy said cryptically. After a long pause, Jimmy said, 'Rachel, I can't see you anymore. Your safety is my utmost concern, and with me around, you'll never be safe.'

'What? Jimmy? Why?' Rachel asked, her breathing pace speeding up and tears threatening to fall.

'I'll go,' Phoebe said as quietly as possible, walking as quickly as possible out of the front room.

As she left the cream coloured house, Phoebe began to walk slowly along the street.

'Phoebe.'

Phoebe stopped and turned around to see that Jimmy was approaching her.

'Why did you break up with her?' Phoebe asked.

Jimmy was puzzled by Phoebe's question. 'You actually believe me?'

'That you loved her? After all I have seen today, yes,' Phoebe confirmed with a weak smile.

Jimmy sighed. 'As long as I'm around her, there will be trouble. Whether it's other witches realising that I'm a demon and coming after me, or general demons doing what they do best. I had to leave her.'

'I am so sorry,' Phoebe said.

Jimmy's look of grief turned into a sudden fit of frustration. 'You should be. If you and your sisters had not have interfered none of this would have ever happened.'

Phoebe gaped. 'Excuse me? My sisters and I did nothing wrong! It was your brother that tried to kill her!'

'Yes, but he would never have gotten so worked up if you and your sisters hadn't turned up in the first place!' Jimmy countered.

'She was our innocent!' Phoebe argued. 'We had to help her!'

Jimmy kept his mouth shut, unwilling to add anything more to the conversation. After a short pause, Jimmy said, 'It was low for your sisters to go to my father about this.' Jimmy turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction to the one that Phoebe had been going in. However, he stopped for a second to face Phoebe again. 'You should really reassess your own morality before you go about blaming every demon for being evil without allowing for a first impression.' He walked away.

Phoebe turned to carry on walking on down the street. The fears that had surrounded her all afternoon were returning as she began to sob.

**...**

On the scene of the same street a little while later, Paige opened the door of Piper's jeep and got back into the passenger's seat. 'The homeowner, who I am going to assume is Rachel, said that Phoebe left a while ago. Rachel looked really upset about something.'

Piper's jeep was currently pulled up outside the cream coloured house. They had only arrived moments before and Paige's sentence confirmed that they had been too late to help with the fight. Fortunately, their innocent was still alive.

Piper started the jeep back up and pulled away from the kerb. 'Phoebe can't have gotten far by foot.'

'She could have gotten further by shimmering,' Paige suggested.

'Don't say that, Paige. The brothers haven't taken her anywhere. Please don't suggest something like that,' Piper pleaded. 'Phoebe's okay. She won't have gone far.'

**...**

Phoebe had been walking for a little while now. However her tears had not subsided yet. She wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her hand as she sniffed.

A jeep pulled up beside Phoebe as she continued to walk. Phoebe paid no attention to it, hardly even noticing that it was there. Both front doors of the jeep opened. Piper and Paige came running out of the jeep to embrace their sad sister.

Phoebe stopped walking and looked at her concerned sisters.

'Pheebs,' Piper implored. 'What happened?'

'All those years ago, when time after time, Cole asked me for help and I kept turning him away with the excuses that he was evil…' Phoebe began.

'He was evil, Phoebe,' Paige insisted.

Phoebe shook her head. 'How do we know for sure? How do we know that we didn't misjudge him? How do we know that my spite did not cloud my judgement?'

'He was evil,' Piper said, shaking her head. 'He was the Source of All Evil at one point, for crying out loud! He tried to kill Paige numerous times during and after that! He _was_ evil, Phoebe.'

Phoebe sniffed. 'No. After all of that Source crap, I bid farewell to the Cole that I knew in the wasteland. That Cole was not evil. That Cole had spent a very long time possessed. I said my goodbyes then, and knew that I couldn't – we could never be, because it was never going to work out between us.' Phoebe paused as a choking sob made speaking impossible for a few seconds. 'When he came back, I was so focused on pushing him away that I tried to convince myself of any reason to explain why I couldn't be with him.'

'Phoebe, why are you blaming yourself? You shouldn't be blaming yourself for anything that happened,' Piper said.

Phoebe stared Piper right in the eye and said, 'Cole died twice. I vanquished him twice!'

'If it makes you feel better, you didn't do it the second time, since it was an alternate reality,' Paige added as consolingly as possible.

'Yes, but I led him to it,' Phoebe said.

'He was obsessive,' Paige continued. 'However you would have gone about the separation, he would not have accepted it.'

Phoebe shook her head.

'Phoebe, please. You did nothing wrong,' Piper said, hugging her sister.

'I do everything wrong, Piper,' Phoebe said, still in her state of self-blame. 'Especially today. I couldn't get a premonition off that damn letter. I couldn't stop Jimmy's brother by myself. I even almost exposed magic to a mortal when I thought she was a witch.'

'You can't blame yourself for that either,' Piper said. 'We all thought she was a witch, because of that letter…'

'Why would she put that in her letter if she isn't a witch and doesn't know about magic or who we are?' Paige asked.

'She didn't write it,' Phoebe said. 'She can't have done.'

'And that would explain why you couldn't get a premonition from it,' Paige realised. 'She wasn't originally supposed to be our innocent.'

'Why would whoever wrote it go to all of that trouble?' Piper asked.

Phoebe's tears were finally beginning to dry up as she replied, 'Have you never heard of Rachel Stone?'

Paige shook her head, while Piper said, 'I recognise the name, but I can't think where from.'

'She's the main radio host over at _KQSF_ _Radio_,' Phoebe stated. 'Exposing magic to someone in the media is obviously what the letter writer wanted.'

'So who's the letter writer?' Paige pondered.

'What time is it?' Phoebe asked somewhat randomly.

Puzzled by the suddenness of what seemed like a digression from a serious conversation, Piper looked at her watch and said, 'Six. Why?'

'There'll still be people at the _Bay Mirror_,' Phoebe replied.

**...**

After the time it took to drive there had passed, Phoebe came barging into Elise Rothman's office at the headquarters of the _Bay Mirror_. Elise looked up from her desk, startled.

'Phoebe, I thought you were off for the rest of the day,' Elise said.

'I was. I mean, I am,' Phoebe said. 'Elise, I was just looking for one of the assistants…'

'Mary's just gone for her break,' Elise began, but Phoebe was already shaking her head.

'Not her,' Phoebe said. 'The new one. The assistant that started today.'

Elise deadpanned, before saying: 'No one started today.'

'Yes, someone did. She brought my _Ask Phoebe_ letters into my office this afternoon,' Phoebe persisted. 'She had long auburn hair. Green eyes. She was around the same height as me.' Phoebe continued with a guess: 'She looked like she was around twenty five or twenty six-ish.'

Elise shook her head. 'I am sorry, Phoebe, but we have not hired any assistants since last year, and I have never seen anyone of that exact description around here.'

Phoebe gawked at Elise in disbelief.

**...**

It was a typically busy and loud evening at _P3_. The three sisters and Leo sat in their personal booth, discussing the main outcomes of the day.

'I can't believe your selling _P3_,' Phoebe said quietly, not allowing her reaction to appear in her tone or her expression.

'Are you okay with that?' Piper asked.

Phoebe smiled gleefully and hugged Piper. 'Of course I am,' Phoebe began in her patented baby voice. 'My big sister is finally going to be a chef!'

'Slow down a little, Pheebs,' Piper said. 'I still need to sell this place before I can get around to opening up a restaurant.'

Phoebe released Piper from the hug and nodded. 'That should be easy enough with the success this place is. I mean you even managed to get _that _band to play here tonight.'

Piper laughed. 'Pheebs, it's a random DJ today.'

'Yeah, I know. I was practicing my sales pitch for you,' Phoebe giggled.

'Thanks, but I think I'll leave the selling to the professionals,' Piper said. 'Besides, I think our main focus should be finding out who that woman was…'

Paige decided to interject with, 'Or what she was. We don't know her motives. She could be a magical creature that got her information wrong, or a demon that wanted to cause trouble for us.'

'Or an Elder trying to get through to you another way,' Leo added. 'Even if the information about the witch was wrong, that could have been a mistake. The part about her dating a demon was still true.'

'Or your future daughter,' Paige joked.

Piper grimaced. 'I hope not. I think I've had enough of time travelling kids for one lifetime.'

Leo looked a little uneasy. 'Aren't you also supposed to point out that we don't have a daughter just yet, or is this something you're thinking about?'

Piper smiled, hugging Leo. 'We're kidding around, Leo.'

Phoebe laughed before adding a little more seriously, 'Whoever – whatever – she is, we'll find out.'

One of the bartender's approached their booth at this point and said, 'I'm sorry, Piper, but we need some more people on bar to deal with the orders. Do you think you co –'

'I'll give you a hand at the bar,' Leo interrupted, standing up.

Piper took Leo's hand and said, 'Leo, you don't have to.'

Leo smiled at Piper. 'It's fine.' He released his hand from Piper's grasp and followed the bartender over to the bar.

Piper sighed as she watched him walk away. 'Do you think he's happy being a mortal?'

'Piper, we know he is. Anyway, I thought that falling from grace thing was permanent,' Phoebe said.

'So did I,' Piper sighed.

'Apparently not,' Paige said.

Phoebe did not seem convinced by Paige's assertion.

Leo came back over to the table. He chuckled. 'It's a little chilly over there with the air con,' he explained. 'Could you pass me my jacket?' Piper handed Leo his jacket. 'Thanks, Piper.'

Leo was about to walk away again, but Phoebe stopped him.

'Leo, I have a question,' Phoebe began.

Leo nodded for Phoebe to continue.

'You fell from grace, right? Is that permanent, or would it ever be possible to become a whitelighter again?' Phoebe asked.

Leo wondered where this question was coming from, but decided not to ask. 'Let's put it this way. If clipped wings are a temporary suspension, falling from grace is a permanent firing. It's not possible.'

'Thanks, Leo,' Phoebe said, letting him go back to the bar.

The sisters exchanged bewildered looks when Leo was safely out of hearing distance.

'Why would the Elders lie about something like that?' Phoebe asked, completely stumped.

'They took away my whitelighter abilities – powers that I was born with – for refusing to take Leo on as a charge when he can't even be made a whitelighter again,' Paige said in incredulity. 'Why?'

'They knew you were going to refuse the assignment…' Piper realised. 'I think they wanted any excuse to suspend you…'

Paige frowned. 'I know some Elders dislike us as much as we dislike them, but I hardly call that a reason to trick me into a reason to take away my whitelighter powers.'

Phoebe shook her head. 'No, Paige. I think Piper's onto something. What was the reason that the Elders gave you for wanting Leo back?'

'They're preparing for something they've foreseen, or something along those lines. Why?' Paige asked.

'I think part of the preparation was making sure you didn't have your whitelighter abilities…' Phoebe sussed.

The three sisters exchanged questioning glances. What had started as a normal morning had progressed into an eventful afternoon and finished as an evening that revolved around more questions than answers.

* * *

**Next episode:** When their innocent is killed before they have a chance to save him, the sisters find themselves in a race against time to find the demon responsible before the police get involved.

* * *

**A/N:** Please review this chapter and let me know what you think.


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